Two-day PSU bank strike impacts services
New Delhi: Services of public sector banks were impacted as employee unions went on a two-day nationwide strike from Friday to press for wage revision.
However, private sector lenders like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were operational.
Many banks, including State Bank of India (SBI), had informed customers in advance that operations may be impacted to some extent due to the strike.
Cash deposit, withdrawal, cheque clearances, instrument issuance and loan disbursement were affected. With this strike, banks would be closed for three days including Sunday. Banks will open only on Monday, February 3.
The strike coincides with the beginning of the Budget session of parliament and presentation of Union Budget 2020-21.
The strike call has been given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions, including All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW).
Unions claimed that about 10 lakh staff and officers of public sector banks and some private sector banks are participating in strike. Branches of public sector banks were closed in many parts of country, as per initial reports.
Wage revision for employees of public sector banks is pending since November 2017. In the past wage settlement, which was for the period November 1, 2012, to October 31, 2017, employees got a hike of 15 per cent.
During discussions, the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) on Thursday improved their offer to 13.5 per cent, but this was not acceptable, the unions said.
However, IBA in a statement said despite the revised offer of up to 19 per cent hike, including performance linked incentive, made by it during the meeting on Thursday, the unions decided to go ahead with the all-India bank strike.
A section of bank employees had gone on a day-long strike on January 8 in support of 10 major trade unions' protest call against the government's "anti-people" policies.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
