The customers of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) bank have had a rough few months. Ever since RBI set the limit on the scam-hit bank, these depositors have been staging a protest demanding that they should be allowed to withdraw their hard-earned money.
Even in the month of June, the customers of the bank had staged a protest, following which some of the depositors were detained by the police. In their defence, the depositors of OMC bank claimed that they had followed all social distancing norms.
Given their last experience, some of the customers got together for an online protest. During this protest, they demanded that they should be allowed to withdraw their saving from the bank. Some of the protestors claimed that during this lockdown, they were finding it difficult to manage even household expenses and hence they needed to get access to their savings.
On June 20, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) extended the restrictions imposed on the bank for another six months. This means that the restrictions for PMC bank holders will now end on December 22, 2020. On this date, RBI also announced a new withdrawal limit for PMC bank holders. As per the new directive now every bank holder will be able to 1 lakh from their accounts. Earlier this was fixed at Rs 50,000 and there was another provision to withdraw an additional Rs 50,000 in case of a medical emergency.
The bank first made headline in September 2019 when the RBI noticed irregularities in its dealings. Through the investigations that followed, it has now revealed that the bank had extended large sums of loans to the realty firm HDIL. The promoters of HDIL were taken into police custody along with the bank’s auditors and their Chairman S Waryam Singh. It was proposed that the personal assets of HDIL promoters will be auctioned to recover money and pay off the bank debt but so far there has been no progress in this direction.
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