VIKANT SAHAY
PANJIM: With Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank under the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) scanner since September 24 this year, around 11 customers have died of which some have even committed suicide for want of their hard-earned money. The bank is a multi-state scheduled urban co-operative bank with its area of operation in Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and MP. It has 137 branches across India with six of them in Goa.
“Even Mapusa Urban Cooperative Bank has put its money in the PMC Bank. I am a retired person and a senior citizen. I appeal to the aggrieved customers of PMC Bank to meet me at St Inez Church hall at 11 am on December 1 and register their complaints so that we can file a petition before the court to save our lives,” Mousinho dos Reis, a concerned customer of PMC Bank in Goa informed Herald.
Umesh Rao, Advocate said, “There may be around 10,000 customers with PMC Bank in Goa, but affected ones could be around 500-1000. My personal amount at stake runs into lakhs. I am a senior citizen and it my life’s hard-earned savings and we do not have pensions, gratuity or government support. I have been working as an advocate for last 47 years. I may help in filing a petition as I am an affected customer of the PMC Bank and this case is likely to go to the High Court. The service of this bank was par excellence and I have been its customer since 1977. I am a chartered accountant too but I do not practice. I kept my money in PMC because they were paying reasonably good interest and the PMC staff in Goa is excellent. But now I have my doubts on the bank auditors and directors.”
With regards to the ongoing PMC bank fiasco, many depositors across the country are anxious to retrieve their savings from the bank, but are unable to withdraw beyond a paltry sum of Rs 50,000 (Rupees fifty thousand only) for a period of six months since September 24, 2019 due to RBI restrictions. It has been over 54 days since these restrictions have been imposed causing immense hardship to depositors, who have parked their life savings by way of fixed deposits, etc.
There are unions formed and petitions filed all across the country. Depositors in Mumbai have been agitating on the streets outside the RBI Governor’s office or the Chief Minister’s office etc. PILs and writ-petitions have been filed citing the hardship by the depositors. “However, the “power-hungry” politicians in Maharashtra are busy in a tussle and seem to have given little or no heed to our predicament. It must be appreciated that withdrawal limit that had been increased from Rs 1,000 to Rs 50,000 is purely to appease the agitators that have thronged the streets in Mumbai without whom nothing would have been achieved,” Reis added.
As on March-end 2019, PMC Bank had deposits and advances aggregating to Rs 11,617 crore and Rs 8,383 crore, respectively.
