Muhammad Irshad Ullah
CHITRAL: Employees of commercial banks operating in Chitral have urged the federal government to immediately reverse the decision to change the working hours already and restore the five working day so that the daily life of the employees is not disturbed.
Addressing a protest rally at Chitral Press Club on Tuesday, branch managers of various banks, including Sher Zaman (Khyber Bank), Haji Inamullah (Islamic Bank), Basharat Ali (Muslim Commercial Bank), Shah Nawaz (Meezan Bank), Imtiaz Hussain Shah (Bank of Punjab), Irshad Yaftali (Khyber Bank Islamic Bank) and Muhammad Naeem (NRSP Bank) said depending on the nature of work working hours in banks were from 9am to 6pm.
Due to this, the family and social life of the bank employees is already affected and ending the holiday on Saturdays will only add to their problems and difficulties and they will also be affected psychologically. They said according to the new schedule, it was not possible to close banks at 3pm as there will be many problems for the customers and both the bank staff and the customers were satisfied with the five working days in a week.
They said even if the working days were six days a week, they could not close their banks before the usual 6pm because this is the nature of their work and duty otherwise the service delivery would be greatly affected.
The protesters held placards with slogans in support of their demands, while they also chanted slogans against the new time schedule and restoration of Saturday holiday.
A day earlier, bankers in Karachi also held a protest demonstration demanding the restoration of the Saturday holiday.