Contradicting Dileep Sanghani Chairman of the apex body of cooperative banks in the country NAFSCOB, CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) said about 105,000 branches of co-operative bank were on strike on Tuesday.
This has raised the question if the apex body NAFSCOB is really representing thousands of cooperative banks spread across the country especially when it has a Managing Director in Bhima Subramaniyam who despite being on the wrong side of seventies continues in his job for so many years and claims to know the sector very well. Though Chairmen like Dileepbhai Sanghani and earlier Bijender Singh come and go, Subramaniyam continues without interruption.
Some of the sheen were robbed off the apex co-op bodies such as NAFSCOB NAFCUB, FISHCOPFED, NLCF when
the Central govt stopped giving grants to them a couple of years ago and wanted them to stand on their own feet.
Earlier, talking to Indian Cooperative Sanghani had said co-op banks are not on strike as the Association leaders did not contact him or worked out any joint action plan.
Coming to banks’ strike, Venkatachalam also said to IANS that around 85,000 branches of commercial banks were also on strike which led to trouble in the clearance of 40 lakh cheques totaling around Rs 22,000 crore.
Cheque clearances were also not done at Private Banks like – ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and others who did not participate in the strike.
The strike was aimed to protest the government’s “anti-people banking reforms” as well as to voice demands for compensation to employees for extra work done by them on account of demonetization. Unions are also opposed to the proposed labor reforms of the government.
