State Bank of India Officers Association wrote to Press Council of India

Dharamshala, January 7, 2022: The State Bank of India Officers Association Chandigarh Circle has written a letter to the Secretary, Press Council of India to take necessary action against those, who are responsible for publishing misleading news regarding bank holidays resulting in inconvenience for the banks’ customers and employees.
In this letter Deepak K Sharma, General Secretary of State Bank of India Officers association Chandigarh Circle said, “We are pained to bring into your kind notice some misleading news items recently published in national dailies and leading news portals resulting in inconvenience for Bank’s customers and employees. These misleading news items also tarnish the image of Banks as they are looked down upon by the general public for having a huge number of holidays, whereas the truth is that the banking industry comes under essential services category and thus has the least number of holidays.”
He added, “Many leading news portals have published a news item that Banks will be closed for 16 days in January 2022. This news item is completely false, fabricated and unsubstantiated. In most of the states the banks will have only one holiday i.e. 26th January (Republic Day) apart from the usual weekend holidays i.e. Sundays & two Saturdays (2nd & 4th).”
He further added that such misinformation impacts the general public in particular and banks’ customers and employees in particular. Due to the panic created by these misleading news items, the customers of the bank rush towards bank branches leading to overcrowding of the branches in this pandemic period.
Also, the banks’ services get affected due to huge rush in the branches, sometimes leading to human errors and omissions due to unnecessary pressure & urgency during working hours.
Talking to this reporter on phone Sharma said that such news items are repeatedly being published by some of the national dailies and leading news portals. The only source that we could gather for such news appears to be the list of holidays for the Banks. It is important to note here that Banks’ holidays are declared under Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 and are declared by respective UT/ State governments for their respective UTs/states. Thus, the Bank’s holidays vary from state to state across the country.
He said that he has also requested the Press Council of India to counsel the editors of leading dailies and other news portals to avoid any such spread of misinformation in future.