New Delhi: As many as seven employees’ unions of banks, 11 central trade unions and 5,000 smaller unions have given a call for strike on Tuesday.

The striking trade unions include the Left labour arms CITU, AITUC, UTUC and AIUTUC, and Congress’ INTUC, besides BMS, HMS, TUCI and NLO who have joined forces in support of a 10-point charter of demands including protest against rising prices, disinvestment of profit-making PSUs and violation of labour.

As per reports, senior union leaders have said that the strike will be near-total in Assam, Kerala, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.

Around 8 lakh bank employees will protest against outsourcing of non-core activities to the private sector, stringent measures to recover bad loans.

“Seven bank unions of nine have given strike call for stringent and effective measures to recover bad loans of banks and unilateral imposition of Khandelwal committee recommendations,” All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) General Secretary CH Venkatachalam told a news agency.

There are about 87,000 branches of public sector banks across the country. The state-owned lenders control about 75 per cent of banking business. Meanwhile, many banks including, SBI, Corporation Bank, State Bank of Mysore have said that if the proposed strike materialises, normal services may have to be curtailed. The Centre-appointed Khandelwal panel had suggested a slew of measures, including outsourcing more and more non-core activities in a time-bound manner.

The panel had also recommended raising the standard of recruitment, including the methodology and content for tests, besides making the testing of computer skills mandatory for both officers and clerks. The Khandelwal committee on human resources had also suggested that the minimum qualification for clerks and sub-staff should be graduation and class 10, respectively.

With PTI inputs