Amid the recent regulations imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on PMC (Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative) Bank, several personal accounts on how the move has drastically affected people's lives have come to light.
With a beggar pleading the authorities to return her life savings to a son of a taxi driver who had ₹2 crores in the bank, these cases have portrayed heartwrenching dismay of the customers. One such depositor was 21-year old Yash Seth's family who had an account in the bank since the last 28 years.
I was passing by the bank at 8:50 am when there was a police van standing and the bank staff were putting up some notice on their shutter. I guessed something is wrong but didn’t have the time to stop by and enquire. At 9:15 am I received the bank's message which I thought I would open later and at 9:35 am when I tried to pay a restaurant's bill from my debit card and it was rejected, I hurriedly opened the message which read as follows:
Later on Friday, September 27, we received the following message:
Also Read: What’s In Store For PMC Bank’s Customers?
"When the news broke out that the bank is giving ₹10,000 per account we rushed to withdraw money from all the accounts we had but the bank did not allow it and stated that my dad's savings account and current account is linked to the same pan card and therefore they cannot give. Similarly, there was a joint account of my mom and dad which had the same pan card linked. There was no clear direction from RBI that amount can be withdrawn per pan card or per account and therefore when we asked the bank to give this in writing that they cannot give per account they refused to do so."
On How These Series of Episode Has Affected Their Personal Lives
"As far as we’re concerned our daily requirement of cash didn’t suffer much because we have accounts in other banks too but there are thousands of people who's daily necessities are affected
My family had their accounts in PMC bank since the last 28 years, primarily because it’s close to our house and the service that they offered was good. We also have shares of this bank as it gave good dividends too. Interestingly, after my 10th and 12th results I even received a scholarship from this bank of ₹10,000 and I'm still unable to fathom the fact that just a few days back I could only withdraw the same amount from the same bank.
My perception about this entire situation is that what was the use of so many audits? Why isn’t there any clarity from the RBI yet on what will happen to the small depositor's money? And if these small cooperative banks are not capable of handling people’s money then why keep so many banks, why can't there be just 3-4 big banks? How will the restrictions in place impact the depositors who have been barred from accessing their own-hard earned money and for practically no fault of theirs? "
The question worth answering is what will happen after the restrictive period of six months is over, will the customers get some respite or will the hardship continue. Now it all depends on the RBI’s call.
Also Read: Here's What Went Wrong With PMC Bank
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