Banking consumers may face difficulties in getting services from March 27 to April 4 as all banks in the country will largely stay closed or offer curtailed services as the institutions switch to the new financial year.
All banks will stay closed for three consecutive days from March 27 (4th Saturday), March 28 (Sunday) and March 29 (Holi).
Further, customer-facing services at bank branches will remain closed on March 31 and April 1 as banks close their books for FY21. April 2 would be a holiday on account of Good Friday and being a Sunday, services will be shut on April 4.
Thereby, seven out of the nine days till April 4 (Sunday) will witness no customer related activities including withdrawal and deposits at bank branches.
As per the RBI calendar, apart from four Sundays and two Saturdays, banks across the country are supposed to remain closed on gazetted holidays.
However, customers do not have to worry as ATMs, mobile banking and online banking services would be available during this period.
Earlier, around 10 lakh bank employees belonging to the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) — an umbrella body of nine unions, had gone on strike on March 15 and 16 to protest against the proposed privatisation of public sector banks that was announced in the Union Budget.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that two public sector banks besides IDBI Bank would be privatised, with the government looking at a disinvestment target for FY22 of Rs 1.75 crore.
Four state-run banks have reportedly been shortlisted for privatisation, namely Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank and the Central Bank of India. The government has already privatised IDBI Bank by selling its majority stake to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the last four years.
With IANS inputs