Bank Holidays Saturday: Are Banks Closed For Maharashtra Election Results On November 23, 2024?

Bank Holidays: PSU or private, banks across India are closed on Saturday, November 23, 2024. Especially in the cities of Maharashtra and Jharkhand, banks are closed for another reason as well, which is the outcome of assembly elections in the two states. Indian banks have a unique pattern of holidays during the weekend every month.

They are open on two Saturdays and closed on the other two Saturdays. If a month has five Saturdays, then they are working on three of them. Meanwhile, all Sundays are bank holidays.

Saturday Bank Holidays On November 23:

Since November 23 is a fourth Saturday, banks will be closed in the entire nation. Generally, banks are closed on the second and fourth Saturdays of a month and open on the first and third Saturdays. In the case of five Saturdays, still, banks will only be closed on the second and fourth, until and unless there is a special festival or occasion which is identified as a bank holiday by RBI.

November 23 is also a special holiday identified by RBI owing to Seng Kutsnem. Hence, banks in Shillong are closed as well.

As per RBI's guidelines, all scheduled and non-scheduled banks - public, private, foreign, cooperative, regional rural and local area banks - will observe public holidays on second and fourth Saturdays from September 01, 2015; and will observe full working days on Saturdays other than second and fourth Saturdays.

It is RBI that decides the holidays of Indian banks. Apart from second and fourth Saturdays, RBI identifies special occasions as holidays under three categories namely - Holiday under the Negotiable Instruments Act; Holiday under the Negotiable Instruments Act and Real Time Gross Settlement Holidays; and Banks' Closing of Accounts. These special holidays are in most cases public holidays and national holidays.

Notably, bank holidays vary from state to state, so not all banks need to be closed on public holidays across India. But on national holidays like Independence Day, Republic Day, or Gandhi Jayanti, all banks are compulsorily closed across India irrespective of state or city. National holidays are generally fixed and practised by every state.

Since banks are closed on the fourth Saturday, payment systems like Real 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 not be accessible.

Banks will be closed on Sunday, November 24 as well. Overall, in November, banks have 10 special holidays in the month excluding second and fourth Saturdays and all Sundays.

Latest Election Updates:

On Saturday, the counting of votes is taking place in Maharashtra and Jharkhand for the assembly elections in 2024.

As per the Election Commission of India, at the time of writing, the BJP party had a lead with 125 seats in the Maharashtra assembly election, while the home-ground party Shiv Sena followed in second with 56 seats. Furthermore, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Indian National Congress (INC), both part of Congress, won 36 seats and 20 seats respectively. Lastly, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) won 19 seats.

Further, on Saturday, the latest counting of polls, revealed that BJP and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party were currently in a tie with 28 seats each, followed by INC with 14 seats.

The general assembly election in Maharashtra is for 288 members seats of the 15th Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. While election results in Jharkhand is for its 81 members seats.