Two-Day Bank Strike Begins; ATMs Too May Go Dry Soon

Operations in public sector banks came to a standstill today thanks to the 2-day strike on Wednesday and Thursday by over one million employees of the banks, resulting in citizens making a beeline for the ATMs for their cash requirements, and many of the ATMs too going dry within a short time.

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) called for a two-day strike starting from Wednesday after the bank unions rejected the offer of a 2% wage hike after several rounds of negotiations and talks. The revision of wages for bank employees is stated to be due since November 1, 2017. The UFBU leaders said that despite 12 rounds of negotiations and several reminders over the past two years, the Indian Banks Association failed to conclude the wage settlement. They said that the IBA's 2% hike was very meagre and unacceptable, and hence the employees were forced to strike work.

Since the strike has begun during the month-end, salary withdrawals are likely to be affected. Even ATM transactions will be impacted. Online banking operations however will remain unaffected.

Most banks including SBI, PNB and BoB are learnt to have forewarned their customers about the proposed strike. While the strike in all the public sector banks was complete today, private banks including ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank have been functioning though with some hiccups. However, as mentioned, the banks' shutdown forced the citizens to depend on ATMs for their immediate cash requirements, leading to them, too, going dry in many places. Many more are expected to stop dispensing cash from tomorrow.

Though the bank authorities had earlier promised that cash would be made available continuously in the ATMs by replenishing them whenever necessary, that too seemed to have not happened as even the security guards at the ATMs joined the strike.

The striking bank employees of the twin cities staged a dharna and protest meeting at the SBI in Koti this morning.