Why Just Banks?

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

There is a lot of hue and cry among some quarters of the public and the business community, ably amplified by the media, about the spate of holidays in April. While there can be no disagreement that holidays affect the flow of economic activity, what surprises the discerning public is that the banks are singled out for attack as the merciless beneficiaries of these holidays. The holidays are declared by the governments (not at the instance of banks) out of political and social considerations and the banks only observe them as per provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act 1888. In fact, the banks would welcome, in lieu of the holidays, a 5 days working week, as enjoyed by government offices and consistent with the practice followed internationally. Unfortunately, this just demand of the bank employees has been meeting with unjustified resistance from the very same quarters of the public and the business community for the last several years.

 

Sections who feel inconvenienced by the spate of holidays, could very well, with the help of the media, inform the government that they renounce all holidays and demand that all services providers, which include state and central government offices, insurance companies, telecommunications, etc work on all the 365 days of the year. The banks form a very small percentage of the entire contingent.