Banking Reforms Come Under Sharp Focus
Banking reform was in sharp focus Thursday as bank workers were at the forefront of striking workers across the country. Harish Sharma, joint secretary of the Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), said Regional Rural Banks and some insurance companies like the LIC and GIC had also joined the strike.
Sharma said their union was not against computerisation but against unemployment caused as a result. He felt that in areas where manual and computer working was equally efficient, computers should not be allowed.
Sharma said banks, especially in the rural areas, were doing yeomen service. If the rate of rural savings was high, it was because of easy accessibility of farmers to banks. He wondered if foreign banks, which promised greater efficiency but charged Rs 25,000 as the minimum deposit, would be viable in the rural areas. He said the right way to measure services in banks was the per capita load on private and public sector bank employees. He also said the demand of the banks was industry-wise and not the institutional settlement.
`The strike was total in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Tripura and Kerala and partially successful in other states,' said K L Mehendra of All-India Trade Union Congress, a constituent of the National Platform for Mass Organisations (NPMO), which called the strike.
`In the financial sector, including banking and insurance, the strike was total throughout the country,' he told reporters, adding the agitation was particularly successful in the coal belt and industrial units, including the small scale sector.
`The manner in which workers responded and even labour force from agricultural, small and other unorganised sectors joined the strike showed that a national opinion was being created against economic policies of the government and the surrender of country's economic sovereignty before the WTO and IMF,' said CITU president and CPI(M) MP E Balanandan.
The NPMO leaders claimed that work was nearly paralysed in insurance and banking sectors with the workers staging demonstrations in a number of places.
Employees of the RBI held demonstrations and stayed away from work to join the strike.
The Class-III employees of RBI all over the country observed total strike, a statement by the AIRBEA said.
`RBI employees are directly affected by the fall-back of such retrograde policies in the country's central bank viz, the proposal to dismember the RBI,' it said.
All-India Insurance Employees' Association in a release claimed that no work could be transacted in any office of LIC, GIC and banks in the capital.
Addressing gatherings and meetings in front of various offices, trade union leaders explained in details about the `ill-effects' of the economic policies.
General Insurance Employees' Association, northern zone claimed that about 1.5 lakh of its members joined the strike.