Over ten lakh bankers went on strike today demanding early revision of the wages.
Around 85,000 bank branches, including that of State Bank of India and some private banks, spread across the country will remain closed today and tomorrow.
A top leader of the All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) has claimed that that on an all-India basis, clearance of 39 lakh instruments with a value of Rs 21,700 crore per day would be impacted.
“The above value and volume were the averages of last 15 days clearance of instruments,” CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA, told news agency IANS.
Venkatachalam has also claimed that the strike has evoked good response nationwide.
With bank branches closed for two days, the ATM machines are being loaded with additional cash to meet any contingency.
“The private banks (like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank) are working and there is no problem there. In the case of public sector banks, the strike call was known well ahead. So, we have collected cash in advance from the banks for loading in the ATMs,” V Balasubramanian, President, Financial Software and Systems (FSS), told news agency IANS.
The city based FSS manages ATMs for several banks in the country.
“Generally we know the cash dispensation per day per ATM. We load the machines with cash for two days transaction value which is at an average is around Rs six lakh. This time we have loaded ATMs with cash of around Rs 15 lakh which would take care of the average cash dispensation for four days,” Balasubramanian said.
According to him, the ATMs are loaded more with Rs 500 notes.
The Bank of Maharashtra MD and CEO Ravindra P Marathe has urged his customers to make the maximum use of digital banking services for their transcations as the strike might disrupt normal banking services at the branches.
However, reports are coming in that ATMs in some areas are running dry as bank employees are striking today.
