SBI employees blame Finance Ministry, to intensify agitation

Agartala, Apr 6 (UNI) The joint movement committee of State Bank of India today accused the Finance Ministry for adopting a negative attitude and announced a plan to intensify the current agitation, which entered the fourth day today paralysing banking operations in all the 33 branches of the bank in Tripura .

Spokesman of the bank's joint movement committee Dilip Deb blamed the Finance Ministry for adopting a negative attitude and alleged that the government representative was not present during yesterday's tripartite meeting.

He described the strike as 'total' and said the strike would continue till the demands were fulfilled.

'' We have no other option but to intensify our agitation because of the negative attitude of the Finance Ministry,'' he added.

Incidentally, Delhi High Court in an interim order yesterday called for settlement of the disputes by April 19.

In the charter of demands the SBI employees have been demanding 50 per cent of the gross salary as pension instead of Rs 4,500 to Rs 5000 being given currently. The charter of demands also includes DA linked with price rise.

In 1969 the SBI employees went on strike for 21 days to press for their charter of demands.

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