Sbi Officers Threaten Nationwide Indefinite Strike From June 26

State Bank of India (SBI) officers have decided to intensify the stir against suspension of three of their colleagues for alleged involvement in the CRB scam even as they continued to strike work in Maharashtra and Goa for second day yesterday, crippling the financial systems in the two states.

According to SBI Officers Association (Mumbai circle) general secretary R D Shendurnikar, a days strike will be observed on June 19 at all local head offices. This will be followed by dharnas on June 23 at all zonal offices.

If the impasse continues, then SBI officers throughout the country will strike work indefinitely from June 26, he said.

 

At a meeting held in Calcutta, the executive committee of the All India State Bank Officers Federation (AISBOF) yesterday decided to reject the offer made by the banks management to conduct an inquiry within 60 days. This is a climbdown on the managements part, which had earlier offered to conduct the inquiry within 120 days.

The officers association stuck to its guns and demanded that the strike will not be revoked till the suspension orders were revoked. The three junior officials working at the Mumbai main branch were suspended on June 10.

In Mumbai, banks stopped accepting cheques drawn on the SBI, crippling transactions. Many companies face the prospect of incurring losses if the strike spreads throughout the country.

In Mumbai circle alone, the daily transactions are in the region of Rs 100 crore to Rs 200 crore, leading to sufficient losses to the bank, said an official said in Mumbai.

SBI, which is primarily a lender in the call money market, has been forced to stay away on account of the strike.

Meanwhile, the All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) has also condemned the suspensions.

In a press note issued yesterday, AIBOC claimed that these officers were desk staff who handled nearly one lakh instruments from all over the country and were not sanctioning authorities, and therefore, not connected with the CRB case.

According to the note, these officers have done their duty by reporting the fraud and have, thus, prevented further loss.

AIBOC said that junior officers have been made scapegoats in the case while the real culprits were going scot free.

It demanded a judicial probe into the case and immediate lifting of suspension of the three junior officers.

AIBOC also lashed out at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the press statement. It said that from the directions to commercial banks in the monetary and credit policy for the first half of fiscal 1997-98, it is clear that RBI was well aware of the dangerous situation prevailing in the non-banking financial companies sector.

In the credit policy, the ceiling on bank credit to NBFCs, which have complied with registration, credit rating and prudential norms, was removed.