Banks to remain open today for normal working hours, no long weekend for employees

NEW DELHI: Following reports of bank closure for five consecutive days starting from Thursday, a union leader said that banks will not remain shut on Saturday. "The banks will work on March 31 (Saturday) and there are no continuous holidays as per messages in the social media," D Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, General Secretary of the All India Bank Officers Confederation had told IANS.

March 31 being the fifth Saturday of the month, all banks will remain open today. Banks are closed only on second and fourth Saturdays. 

While banks will remain closed on March 29 (Thursday) and March 30 (Friday) due to Mahaveer Jayanthi and Good Friday, April 1 is Sunday and April 2 (Monday) is the annual closing day.

As the banks would not function for four days, there are chances that the ATMs would soon run out of cash.

Former NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya had earlier made a strong case for privatisation of public sector banks with the exception of SBI, saying that political parties serious of forming the government in 2019 should include the proposal in their manifesto. 

A professor of economics at Columbia University, Panagariya, had further said that predominance of scandals and NPAs in PSBs is only one albeit important reason for privatisation of PSBs.

"I firmly believe that privatisation of all PSBs except perhaps the State Bank of India should be on the election manifestos of all parties who wish to present themselves as serious candidates to form the government in 2019," he had told PTI. 

(with inputs from agencies)