Agartala, May 30 (IANS): Banking services were badly affected in Tripura on Wednesday as most of the major banks remained closed due to a nation-wide employees' strike.

Leaders of the striking employees claimed that the response of the two-day bank strike is good in all the eight northeastern states, including Assam and Sikkim.

The striking employees were protesting the "anti-people banking reforms" and demanding for wage revision in the wake of the proposal for a two per cent hike in salary.

"Around 4,000 bank employees belonging to about 500 nationalised bank branches in Tripura took part in the strike,...," National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE) Tripura unit Secretary Swapan Modak told the media.

He said: "The NCBE has been demanding early wage review settlement, sufficient raise in salary and improvement in other service conditions and wage revision settlement for all officers up to Scale 7."

All India Bank Officers Confideration Tripura state Secretary Sanjay Datta also echoed the views of Modak.

The employees of Tripura Gramin Bank and Tripura Cooperative Bank are not participating in the two-day strike.

A large number of the ATMs were also closed, creating problems for the people.

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) -- the umbrella organisation of nine employees' unions and four officers' associations -- had called the strike after its talks with the Indian Banks Association in New Delhi failed.

"The bank strike is not for the interest of the employees alone... the agitation is to protest policies of the central government and to protect the Indian banks from foreign controls," Modak said.

The banking employees have also been protesting the outsourcing of non-core activities by the authorities.

Government and foreign exchange transactions were also affected due to the shutdown.

Protest demonstrations were also held in front of the bank branches in many cities across Tripura by the striking employees.

Both Modak and Datta claimed that the responses of the bank shut down in most of the northeastern states are very good.

Tripura government official Chandan Sarkar said that just before the pay day, banking transactions might hit the withdrawing of salaries of lakhs of employees.