SBI workers begin indefinite strike

New Delhi, Apr 3: As many as 2.10 lakh workers and officers in 9022 branches of the State Bank of India (SBI) across the country began an indefinite strike from today to press for a revision of their rate of pension.

According to the All India State Bank of India Staff Federation and the All India State Bank of India's Officer' Federation, all operations in these branches, including nearly 1,000 branches in Delhi region, will be affected by the strike.

The decision to go on strike was taken following the failure of talks on Friday and Saturday between the employee federations, the government and the Chief Labour Commissioner.

The government had invited the federations for talks to resolve the issue as a last-ditch attempt to ward off the strike in the country's largest bank.

In fact, negotiations were on between the federations and the Government till late last night but they failed to avert the strike, All India State Bank of India Staff Federation Vice-President V K Gupta said.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court today restrained the striking SBI employees from staging protest or dharna within 500 metres of the head office or any of the branches.

In an interim order, a division bench of Justice M K Sharma directed the Union Government and RBI to file a report on the action initiated to resolve the crisis. The matter will come up for hearing on April 5.

Till the April 5 hearing in the matter, the striking employees have decided to stage their protests and dharna at Rajghat, Mr Gupta said.

As the talks between the Central Labour Commissioner and the State Bank of India Officers Association (SBIOA) and the SBI Staff Union on the pension issue failed in Vishapattnam, both the unions resorted to an indefinite strike by 2,10,000 bank employees. In Vizag module alone, which comprises four districts of Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and East Godavari, all the 3,600 employees of the bank joined the strike.

The Centre is likely to hold talks with the striking employees soon, keeping in view the seriousness of the situation. Meanwhile, two PILs had been filed separately in the Chennai and Mumbai, High Courts.

In Chennai too, all the branches of the bank in the city were deserted in view of the strike, causing hardship to its lakhs of customers.

A protest meeting was held at the bank's headquarters here and the ATMs remained non-functional. several cardholders of the bank chose to withdraw money from other banks with which the SBI had a tie-up for ATM withdrawals alone.

Agartala too responded to the strike with banking operations in all the 33 branches of SBI in Tripura virtually collapsing with the employees joining the agitation band wagon.

A spokesman of the Bank's joint movement committee said the charter of demands included review of the present pension system and linking DA with rise in the prices of essentials.

The employees and officers of the SBI have already sent memoranda to the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister for redressal of their grievances and the last minutes efforts to avoid the strike had failed to produce any result, the spokesman said.

Kolkata also witnessed a similar scenario with banking services in about 9,500 SBI branches coming to a halt following the indefinite strike by about 2.10 lakh employees.

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.

UNI