Banking services were set to get impacted for the second day today. Ten lakh bank employees, mostly of public sector banks, went on a two-day strike starting Wednesday. The bank employees went on the strike to press for higher salary hikes. Salary withdrawals from bank branches are likely to get impacted due to the month-end strike. Other banking services like deposits, FD renewals, government treasury operations, money market operations were hit by the strike. Twenty one public sector bank have about 85,000 branches across the country, accounting for 70 per cent of the total banking busseness in the country.
After several rounds of talks between bank managements and the unions of their employees did not make any headway, the United Forum of Banking Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions, had called for the two-day strike. They are protesting against proposed wage hike of 2 per cent as against 15 per cent given last time, a top union official said.