Chennai, Mar 28 (IANS): The first day of the two-day strike in the banking sector was successful with several branches across the country remaining closed, said All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), a major union in the sector.

The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions and various sectoral Independent Trade Unions have given a strike call for March 28 and 29, protesting against the "anti-people" economic policies and "anti-worker" labour policies of the Central Government.

According to C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA, the strike was observed by bank employees in public, private and cooperative sectors, foreign banks and regional rural banks across the country.

He said as per initial reports, the strike has been a success.

"We could observe that employees are particularly unhappy with the decision of the government to privatise the banks. Lakhs of young employees and officers have joined the public sector banks after a very tough recruitment process and many of them have left IT and other private sector jobs and joined the Government owned banks only due to the job security available in these banks," Venkatachalam said.

Hence the Government's plan to privatise the banks is a rude shock and highly demoralising, he added.

Clearing operations were also affected because branches could not send the cheques for clearance.

The strike will continue tomorrow also, he added.

Meanwhile, the strike in the government-owned general insurance companies did not impact the public.

While the clerical cadres were on strike, the officers worked and accepted the premium to avoid any break in insurance cover.