Guwahati/Agartala, Jan 31 (IANS): Banking services were badly affected in the northeastern states on Friday 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 very good in all the eight northeastern states, including Assam and Sikkim.
The striking employees were protesting the "anti-people banking reforms" and demanded 20 per cent pay hike, 5-day work in a week, improvement in pension and family pension schemes. Over 80,000 bank employees of nationalised banks in the eight northeastern states took part in the strike.
United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) leader Jawaharlal Dey said that the UFBU had been demanding scraping of new pension scheme, equal wage for equal work for contract employees and business correspondents. The employees of various Regional Rural Banks also took part in the agitations while the employees of the State Cooperative Banks are not participating in the strike.
A large number of the ATMs were also closed, creating problems for the people.
The UFBU, the umbrella organisation of nine employees' unions had called the strike after its talks with the Indian Banks Association in New Delhi failed.
"The bank strike is not in the interest of the employees alone... the agitation is to protest policies of the central government and to protect the Indian banks from so called reforms," Dey 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 the northeastern region by the striking employees.
The UFBU leader Dey claimed that the responses of the bank shutdown in most of the northeastern states are very good.
Tripura government official Nandan Sarkar said that just before the pay day, banking transactions might hit the withdrawing of salaries of lakhs of employees.