Employees working in public sector banks may get a good news in the coming days. On Tuesday, the Minister of State for Finance, Bhagwat Karad told the Parliament that a proposal has been presented in which, there is a demand to declare every Saturday as a holiday in all the banks of India. This means that there is a demand to work only five days every week in banks.
According to Bhagwat Karad, this proposal has been presented by IBA. In 2015, the government had implemented a new rule for all the banks of India under which the bank employees would get two extra holidays on two Saturdays in the month. Since then, all the banks of the country remain closed on the second and fourth Saturday of the month. This is a mandatory holiday and applies to banks from public sector to private sector of the country.
There has been a long demand from public and private sector banks for working five days a week. Especially public sector banks have raised this issue at many occasions. At the same time, all the public and private banks of India, foreign banks, cooperative banks, regional rural banks and all India financial institutions under the membership of IBA have also demanded to work five days a week. Let us tell you that more than 1.5 million employees work in the banking sector.
Although, Bhagwat Karad informed that a proposal for holiday on every Saturday has been received from IBA, he did not say whether the demand has been accepted or can be implemented any time in the near future. According to Business Today, if this proposal is accepted then the employees will not only get the benefit of working five days a week, but along with this the number of working hours may increase.
If 5-day working system is implemented in banks, then employees may have to work 40 minutes extra every day. That means their working time can be from 9:45 am to 5:30 pm.
