Bhubaneswar: Hundreds of retired bank employees staged a sit-in protest at Lower PMG Square Wednesday, demanding immediate revision of their basic pension and resolution of other long-pending issues.
They later met Governor Hari Babu Kambhampati at Lok Bhawan and submitted a memorandum addressed to PM Narendra Modi, urging the Central government to revise the basic pension of bank retirees and resolve their pending demands at the earliest.
The protest was organised by the All Odisha Bank Retirees’ Federation, the state committee of the All India Bank Retirees’ Federation (AIBRF), as part of a nationwide agitation programme that includes sit-ins, demonstrations and hunger strikes.
More than 1,000 retired pensioners from the Bank of India, UCO Bank, Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India, Canara Bank, Indian Bank and Union Bank joined the demonstration and highlighted the financial hardships faced by the retirees.
Leaders of the association said that while salaries and pensions of Central and state government employees are revised periodically, the basic pension of bank retirees has not been revised for nearly 30 years.
They also pointed out that pension revisions have already taken place at the Reserve Bank of India and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), but similar revisions have not been implemented in many nationalised and private banks.
