Date:29/07/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/07/29/stories/2004072901281900.htm

Back Kerala: Banks crippled as staff stay away in protest

Our Bureau

NO SERVICE: A closed bank in Kochi city on Wednesday. Bank employees in the State went on leave en masse on Wednesday to protest attacks on banks by students after an engineering student, who was denied a bank loan, committed suicide. - K.K. Mustafah

Thiruvananthapuram , July 28

BANKING operations in the State were crippled after a majority of the officer cadre owing allegiance to the All-India Bank Officers' Confederation stayed away from work to protest attacks on bank branches by Left-wing students over the past few days.

The attacks were triggered by the suicide of an engineering student who jumped to death from a high-rise building in the city reportedly because she could not cough up funds to finance her studies.

Most of the nationalised banks, some of which were open for business, could not transact any business since only skeletal staff reported for duty on Wednesday. Even ATMs were closed for the day as some of them were attacked in the past six days. However, functioning of the private and foreign banks was not entirely affected.

Meanwhile, the State unit of the All-India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) demanded that the Government frame a policy that would enable students from all sections of society to pursue higher studies with merit being the qualifying criterion.

Safeguards should be incorporated to protect the interests of the weaker and economically backward sections, according to Mr V.J. Johny, General Secretary, All Kerala Bank Employees Federation, affiliated to the AIBEA.

The federation felt that he attacks would only serve to deflect attention from the real issue, which was commercialisation of the education sector.