Vijayawada: Bank strike continues for second day

Vijayawada: The nation-wide bank strike continued on the second day on Friday making the shut down a grand success throughout the country which was launched in response to the call given by United Federation of Bank Unions protesting against the Central government's move to privataise the public sector banks. More than 10 lakh bank employees and officers participated in the state.

All the banks in the city were closed and several hundreds of bank employees and officers staged protest demonstrations before the Bank of Baroda branch near the NTR University of Health Sciences on Friday. Addressing the striking bank staff, the vice-president of AP and Telangana Bank Employees Federation K S Rao said that the banks were nationalised way back in 1969 in order to provide banking services to the poor and downtrodden. It is high time that the banking services needed to be extended to serve people more and to achieve the ideals of the bank nationalisation. He said that it is not proper to privatise the banks which would result in the benefit of the vested interests. The privatisation would deprive the banking services to rural areas in the country, he warned.

The Centre is bent to privatise the banks on the pretext that the public sector banks are not working efficiently which is not true, he said and recalled that several private banks were closed due to inefficiency.

Retired Bank Employees Association AP general secretary Yella Rao said that the real problem the PSU banks are facing is the NPAs for which the corporate sector was responsible. "It is not the mistake of the PSU banks but the loan evasion by the corporate sector," he added.

ALL India Bank Officers Association leader Avinash said that the banks should continue in the public sector and they should not be privatised. The privatisation would adversely affect everyone in the society and the students might not get even education loans.

Bank officers and employees including Naraismham, K Radhakrishna, K V S S Ravi Kumar, Babu, U V S S Varma, K V Ranga Rao, Srinviasa Rao also spoke.