Bank Holiday Today, Maharashtra Election: Why Banks Are Closed In These Cities On Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Bank Holidays 2024: Banks in many cities of Maharashtra are closed on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, due to the voting of the general assembly election of the state. That being said, banks are operating as normal working days in all other states of the country.

As per RBI's list of holidays, banks are closed in the cities of Belapur, Mumbai, and Nagpur due to the Assembly General Election, 2024 in Maharashtra.

A General assembly election is scheduled to be held in Maharashtra on 20 November 2024 to elect the 288 members of the 15th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, the counting and the results will be declared on 23 November 2024, as per Wikipedia.

Banks in Maharashtra will resume normal working days from Thursday, November 21 onward.

Since banks are closed on Wednesday, access to payment systems like Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT), and Cheque Clearing operated by various Bankers' Clearing Houses in the country including the grid-based Cheque Truncation System (CTS) and ECS suite [Electronic Clearing Service (ECS), Regional Electronic Clearing Service (RECS) and National Electronic Clearing Service (NECS)] - will be closed.

Overall, in November, banks have 10 special holidays in the month excluding second and fourth Saturdays and all Sundays.

Banks were closed due to Laxmi Pujan and Deepawali on November 1st and 2nd. Now November 2nd was the first Saturday but a special holiday identified by RBI so all banks were closed on that Saturday. Other holidays were Chhath on November 7th, Wangala Festival on November 8th, and Nongkrem Dance on November 12.

This year, RBI has also identified assembly general elections as bank holidays. On November 13, there was a bank holiday in Ranchi due to the Jharkand assembly election. This followed a bank holiday on November 15 due to Guru Nanak Jayanti.

In the current week, banks were closed on November 18 due to Kanakadasa Jayanti. Further, in Mumbai, banks will be closed on November 20 due to the Maharashtra assembly election, and there is also a bank holiday on November 23 due to Seng Kutsnem which is the last special holiday of the month.