Chennai, May 6: Over 10 lakh bankers in government and private banks will go on a two-day strike by the end of May if the government does not ask the Indian Banks Association (IBA) to make an improved offer, said a leader of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA).

"It is a matter of shame that while thousands of crores of rupees are written off from profits towards bad loans of big corporates, the genuine demands of bank employees are being denied in this fashion," C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA, said on Sunday.

"If the Finance Ministry does not intervene to make the IBA to make their improved offer, it has been decide to call for a 48-hour continuous strike by end of this month," he said.

Wage revision talks between the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) -- an umbrella body of bank unions -- and IBA representing various banks held in Mumbai on Saturday ended in a failure.

Venkatachalam said the IBA offered an increase of 2 per cent over the total wage bill of the banks as on March 31, 2017.

In the last 10th Bipartite Wage Settlement that was made effective from November 1, 2012, IBA had agreed for a hike of 15 per cent increase over the total wage bill.

The unions rejected the IBA offer of 2 per cent hike, Venkatachalam said.

While the government had asked the IBA to conclude the wage revision settlement before November 1, 2017, the latter has been delaying, Venkatachalam added.

Wage revision for bankers is due from November 1, 2017.

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ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.

“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.

The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.

Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.