Bank strike total across West Bengal, customers inconvenienced

Banking operations across West Bengal was hit on the first day of the two-day nationwide bank strike, which received huge response from the staff and officers of public sector banks, foreign and private banks in the state.

Customers were inconvenienced due to the strike and as most of the ATMs ran dry due to the lack of replenishment.

There are about 8590 bank branches in the state which employ around 2.7 lakh people.

Goutam Niyogi, West Bengal convenor of United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), the umbrella body of bank unions, claimed that the strike in the state is total.

UFBU, which has called the strike, has vowed to carry out more agitational programmes in future if the government went ahead with the Banking Privatisation Bill.

Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman had said in her budget speech that the government will privatise two public sector banks (PSBs) in the current fiscal.

Sanjay Das, general secretary of All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) said that besides the two-day strike, a series of other agitational programmes will be carried out if the government does not give up the idea of privatising PSBs.

Das that the move to privatise public sector banks will hurt the priority sectors of the economy, the credit flow to self-help groups and also to the rural economy.

The move, he said, is not based on sound economic logic, but is purely a political decision to "hand over the banks to crony capitalists".

According to him, 70 per cent of the country's total deposits are with the PSBs and handing them over to private capital will put the common man's money deposited in these banks to risk.