WITH new angles emerging about the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank every day, the depositors have come out and expressed their discontent regularly. The PMC Bank crisis was first exposed on September 23, when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directed it to shut down its operations. In addition, a withdrawal limit of ₹1000 per customer which had been imposed was relaxed to ₹25,000 on October 3. As per the RBI, now with this new limit, 70 per cent of the bank holders will be able to withdraw their entire savings.
According to reports, the major cause of this crisis is the exposure that the bank had to bankrupt Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL).
As per the police, PMC Bank had replaced 44 loan accounts of the HDIL group with over 21,000 fictitious loan accounts, and through this managed to “camouflaged” defaults by the group.
This disclosure was made by The Economic Offences Wings of the city police while seeking custody of chairman and managing director of Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang, arrested on October 3. It is being said that Joy Thomas, who was the Managing Director of the bank had full knowledge of what was happening in the bank.
Recently, depositors held a silent protest outside PMC Bank’s Thane branch on Sunday, October 13. They were seen flashing placards which read ‘No Bail, Only Jail’, ‘No Vote’ etc.
(Courtesy: mumbai live)