SBI employees strike paralyse services in branches

Kolkata, Apr 3 (UNI) Banking services in about 9,500 State Bank of India (SBI) branches throughout the country have come to a halt following the indefinite strike by about 2.10 lakh employees of the bank from today.

Claiming all round success on the first day of their indefinite strike, SBI Officers Association general secretary M K Haldar and his counterpart in the SBI Staff Association Ashoke Datta told UNI here that along with 786 SBI branches in West Bengal, all the 9,500-odd branches of the bank throughout the country, have downed their shutters to protest Union government's "adamant attitude" towards meeting their pension related demands.

Peaceful demonstrations and dharnas were being held before the bank branches throughout the country.

Mr Datta said though the SBI top management had agreed to increase the ceiling of the pension for the retired SBI employees in tune with their last drawn basic pay and had recommended it for acceptance to the Union Finance Ministry last year, for some unknown reasons the latter had so far refused to accept it forcing the SBI employees to go for the indefinite strike from today.

Expressing sincere regret for the serious inconveniences to the general public because of the strike, both Mr Datta and Mr Haldar, said they had no other option but to resort to this extreme step to ensure greater financial benefits for the bank's retired employees.

There was no revision towards the upgradation of the pension ceiling for over two decades now, Mr Datta said and claimed that SBI's pension benefits were considered to be the lowest in the banking sector.

Incidentally, this indefinite strike is the fourth in the SBI's 200-year history with three previous such strikes observed in 1947, 1960 and 1969 for 47 days, 21 days and 17 days respectively.

Now with both the government and the bank unions remaining adamant on their stand, it is to be seen how long this strike continues causing tremendous inconveniences to the general public and the bank customers.

UNI ABA TJP SS1156