 On 30th and 31st of May, the United Forum of Bank Unions, consisting of workmen unions and offices, organizations together are going on a nationwide strike demanding that the wage revision should be for all scales. That is from scale 1 to 7 as was the practice from 1979 when the Pillai committee recommendation was implemented. Number two, we want a decent wage hike. Today, we are one of the most underpied employees and offices. State government employees, state government offices, central government offices, the private sector, even LIC, the Reserve Bank, they all get a much better salary than the bank employees and bank offices. So, what we demand is a decent wage hike which should be in comparison to the market. We have looked at the pay commission formula which was arrived at that was a minimum wage how it is arrived at as well as a decent wage how it is arrived at. The same principle should also apply for the bank employees and offices. That we are asking and unfortunately on this discussion we had with the Indian Banks Association on 5th May of this year, they came with a paltry increase of 2 percent which was an insult to the banking sector which has done so much for the country. The bank employees are working from 8 to 8, 8 to 9. They had handled the demonetization, they had handled the jandan, they are handling the mudra loans and implementing all government schemes and in spite of that the government does not want to give a decent wage hike. It is unfortunate that every wage revision whichever government has been in power they had not been giving the rise in time and we had to go for repeated strikes which has happened in the past also. This time we thought there will be a difference because this government had written a letter to the banks asking them to settle the wage revision quickly. Unfortunately, their intention and what they wrote has been different. Though we have met the defense of finance minister, the DFS secretary as well as officials in the finance ministry repeatedly the decent wage hike and this issue of salary revision up to scale 7 has not been settled. So, we have been left with no other alternative than to go on a strike for two days on May 30th and 31st and in case if this does not solve the issue we may be forced to go on an indefinite strike in the banking industry. We are appealing to the public to see the issue how we are working and how we are underpaid and support our cause. There might be some inconvenience we request them to bear with that and we are demanding with the government which is the ultimate decision making authority that immediately they should act. We have already returned to the DFS secretary. They should immediately act and call us for a negotiation and give a wage revision for all scales with a decent wage hike which should be similar to what is existing in the market. This is our demand.