Bank staff to demonstrate against note ban-triggered harassment
21 Dec 2016 10:27 PM GMT
All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) have given a call for demonstration against the problems that various banks and their employees are facing due to demonetisation.
The agitational programmes that they plan to undertake include demonstrations on December 28, followed by the unions addressing a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on December 29, the two bank unions said. The union members also plan to demonstrate over the issue on January 2 and 3, 2017.
AIBEA general secretary C H Venkatchalam and his AIBOA counterpart S Nagrajan in a statement issued today said, "As per the call of our organisations, already our units have undertaken the programme of demonstrations in all major centres and met the local executives of RBI to hand over our memorandum."
The unions have demanded to ensure supply of adequate cash to all banks and branches, restore all ATMs without further delay and ensure transparency in cash supply to banks. "If RBI is not able to supply adequate cash to banks, then decision should be taken to suspend cash transactions in the bank branches till sufficient cash is supplied to banks," the statement said.
They also demanded CBI inquiry into the cases of seizure of huge number of new currency notes with some big persons when the bank branches are cash starved.
The unions also demanded compensation to the families of the persons and bank staff who lost their lives recently due to the demonetisation.
The statement asked RBI and state governments to ensure safety and protection of bank employees and officers by maintaining law and order in all branches to prevent harassment of the staff.
They also want proper compensation to employees and officers for their extra work/late sittings done in the last more than a month. Both the unions claim to have over 5.50 lakh members out of the nearly 9 lakh bank employees in the country.
Farmers given 60 more days torepay crop loans due in Nov-Dec
In a bid to provide relief to farmers hit by cash crunch, the government on Tuesday gave them an additional two months to repay their crop loans due in November-December period and said that prompt repayment would be eligible for the extra 3 per cent interest subsidy.
Under the interest subvention scheme, farmers get the short-term crop loan of up to Rs 3 lakh for one year at an interest rate of 7 per cent. Those repaying on time get the loan at 4 per cent.
“Appreciating the requirement for some more time by the farmers to repay their loan dues, the government has...decided to provide an additional grace period of 60 days to such of the farmers, whose crop loan dues fall due between November 1 and December 31, 2016.
“...if such farmers repay the same within 60 days with effect from the date on which the repayment was due, they will be eligible for prompt repayment incentive for 2016-17,” an official statement said.
Following the recent demonetisation of Specified Bank Notes (SBNs), the government said it is “seized of the constraints faced by the farming community in repayment of loan dues within the prescribed time-limit.”
The government provides crop loans at subvented interest rate of 7 per cent per annum. An additional incentive of 3 per cnet is provided to the farmers for prompt repayment of loans within due date and up to a maximum period of one year.
The prompt payee farmers in effect avail short-term crop loans at 4 per cent per annum. This prompt repayment incentive, however, does not accrue to those farmers who repay after one year of availing such loans.
“It has been decided that an additional grace period of 60 days for prompt repayment incentive at 3 per cent will be provided to those farmers, whose crop loan dues are falling within November 1 and December 2016 and if such farmers repay loan within 60 days,” Joint Secretary in Agriculture Ministry Ashish Kumar Bhutani said.
Suppose a farmer has a crop loan to be repaid on November 15, that farmer will get 60 days more from the due date to repay the loan and avail prompt repayment incentive of 3 per cent, he explained.
A notification in this regard has been issued, he said.
For 2016-17, the government has set a target to disburse agri credit of Rs 9 lakh crore, of which, Rs 7.56 lakh crore credit has been disbursed to farmers till September of this year, as per the
ministry’s data.
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