No continuous holidays for banks

Banks will not remain closed for five consecutive days starting from Thursday, a union leader said on Monday. "The banks will work on March 31 (Saturday) and there is no continuous holidays as per messages in the social media," D. Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, General Secretary of the All India Bank Officers Confederation told IANS.

He said banks will be closed on Thursday and Friday owing to Mahaveer Jayanthi and Good Friday. Saturday will remain open since it is the fifth Saturday of the month. Banks are only closed on second and fourth Saturdays. 

On April 2, the banks will remain shut for annual closing of accounts.

Since, the banks would be closed, there are high possibilites that the ATMs would soon run out of money too. 

Meanwhile, former NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya has made a strong case for privatisation of public sector banks with the exception of SBI, saying that political parties serious of forming government in 2019 should include the proposal in their manifesto. 

Panagariya, who is currently a professor of economics at Columbia University, further said that predominance of scandals and NPAs in PSBs is only one albeit important reason for privatisation of PSBs.

"I firmly believe that privatisation of all PSBs except perhaps the State Bank of India should be on the election manifestos of all parties who wish to present themselves as serious candidates to form the government in 2019," he said in an interview to PTI. 

(with inputs from agencies)