RBI imposes restrictions on PMC Bank, depositors can’t withdraw more than Rs 1K

Agencies
September 24, 2019

Mumbai, Sept 24: Dealing a pre-festival season blow to lakhs of unsuspecting customers, the Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday barred the Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank Ltd from carrying out a majority of its routine business transactions for a six-month period.

The move sent panic waves among the depositors, investors and the city's banking and business circles of the PMC Bank which ranks among the top 10 cooperative banks in the country.

In a terse communique issued late on Monday, RBI Chief General Manager Yogesh Dayal said as per the apex bank's directions, depositors cannot withdraw more than Rs 1,000 from their savings/current/other deposit accounts, leading to huge chaos outside the PMC branches in Mumbai and other parts of India.

Described as a multi-state cooperative banking entity founded in 1984 from a small room in Mumbai, the PMC Bank has grown to 137 branches - in Maharashtra (103), Delhi (6), Karnataka (15), Goa (6), Gujarat (5), and Madhya Pradesh (2).

As per the RBI sanctions, the PMC Bank is debarred for six months from granting, renewing any loans and advances, make any investments, incur any liability, including borrowal of funds or accept fresh deposits, etc, without the prior written approval from RBI.

The RBI has also restricted it from disbursing, agreeing to disburse any payment, whether in discharge of its liabilities and obligations or otherwise, enter into any compromise or arrangements and sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of any of its properties or assets except as notified in the RBI notification of Monday.

Hoping to assuage the customers' sentiments, PMC Bank's Managing Director (MD) Joy Thomas said the bank had been put under regulatory restrictions by the RBI owing to irregularities disclosed to the apex bank.

"As the MD of the Bank, I take full responsibility and assure all the depositors that these irregularities will be rectified before the expiry of six months," Thomas told the bank's distressed customers.

He said that it was a difficult time for all, but urged the people to cooperate, even as the police were deployed outside many branches in the city to avert any untoward incidents.

As per the PMC Bank's latest Annual Report, it has deposits of over Rs 11,617 crore and loans/outstandings of Rs 8,383 crore.

Confusion reigned supreme outside many of the PMC Bank branches in Mumbai, Thane and other cities as depositors - mostly MSMEs and ordinary families - made a beeline to get their monies back, but were not allowed.

"We are completely ruined. We have no money at home for even basic needs. They should allow us to withdraw more or close down our accounts," a weeping woman customer told mediapersons outside the branch in Bhandup.

Another customer in Borivali said the RBI should penalize the bank management for any irregularities instead of blocking customers' accounts.

"This Rs 1,000 limit is ridiculous. We have to make purchases for Navratri, Diwali, pay our children's educational fees and other household expenses. How can we manage ?" the fuming man asked.

Former BJP MP Kirit Somaiya said he was informed of the regulatory orders against the PMC Bank and has raised the issue with the RBI and the Ministry of Finance in the interests of the customers.

"@PMC_Bank says they are under 35A of BR by the @RBI and the thing is I have all my savings stuck in that bank and they say I cannot withdraw my money now.. What do I do.. People here have all their savings in the bank and the bank says they can't help," customer Avinash Sharma tweeted.

Another customer Praful Shah tweeted: "#PMCBank. Its nothing but bankruptcy. My 25 lakhs, saved for daughters' marriages, are now trapped. My lifetime saving getting washed out overnite. Feeling sad."

Comments

kushal kumar
 - 
Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019

  1. According  to  news  reports  ,  RBI  announced  on  24  September  ,  2019  restrictions  on  the  Punjab  &  Maharashtra  Cooperative  ( PMC )  Bank  from  carrying  out   a  majority  of  its  routine  transactions  for  a  period  of  six  months.  Obviously  ,  the  RBI  move  while  being  well  intentioned  ,  has  put  customers  in  a  very  tight  position,  disabling  them  from  carrying  on  their  life  as  usual  for  no  fault  on  their  part  as  they  may  not  be  able  to  withdraw  more  than  rupees  one  thousand  during  the  restriction  period.  In  this  context  ,  it  may  be  apt  to  refer  readers  to  this  Vedic  astrology  writer’s  predictive  alert  through  article  - “  World  trends  in  April  to  August 2019”  -  brought  to  public  domain  widely  in  March  and  subsequently  on  5 April  2019.  The  predictive  alert  had  said  that  during  a  period  of  four  and  a  half  months  from  mid-April  to  August 2019  ,  among  other   countries  specified  in  the  article  ,  more  care  and  appropriate  strategy    may  be  called  for    in  India  also  in  relation  to  the  following :-

    “ 1. Economic  and  financial  aspects  may  reflect  major  worrisome  concerns.”

    A  review  of  the  predictive  alerts  carried  out  by  this  writer  in  May  2019  had  suggested  that   such  need  for  more  care  and  appropriate  strategy   may  reach  out  to  mid-October  ,  while  the  period  from  about  7  August  to  9 October  could  be  particular.  And  within  that  period  ,  25  September  to  9 October  in  2019  looked  to  be  more  particular.  It  seems  that  announcement  of  RBI  on  24  September  2019  can  be  counted  as  meaningfulness  of  the  predictive  alert. 

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News Network
March 4,2020

Mar 4: Twenty-one Italian tourists and three Indian tour operators have been sent to an ITBP quarantine facility in Delhi on Tuesday for suspected coronavirus exposure, official sources said.

Health Ministry sources said these foreigners, 13 women and eight men, were in the same group of which an Italian and his wife have tested positive in Rajasthan capital Jaipur.

“His (Italian in Jaipur) condition is stable,” a source said.

Three Indians, who were accompanying this Italian group as tour operators, have also been sent to the ITBP facility in Chhawla area of south-west Delhi, they said.

All these people, staying at a five-star hotel in south Delhi, have been put in “preventive isolation” at the ITBP camp and their samples will be taken on Wednesday, sources said.

The centre already has 112 people, 76 Indians and 36 foreigners, since February 27 after they were evacuated by an IAF plane from Wuhan in China, the epicentre of the coronavirus.

The first samples of these 112 people had tested negative when reports came in last week.

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News Network
March 16,2020

Mar 16: A fourth batch of 53 Indians returned to India from Iran on Monday, taking the total number of people evacuated from the coronavirus-hit country to 389.

This comes a day after over 230 Indians were brought back from Iran to New Delhi and quarantined at the Indian Army Wellness Centre in Jaisalmer, the third batch to be evacuated from that country.

"Fourth batch of 53 Indians - 52 students and a teacher - has arrived from Tehran and Shiraz, Iran. With this, a total of 389 Indians have returned to India from Iran. Thank the efforts of the team @India_in_Iran and Iranian authorities," Jaishankar tweeted.

The Indians came in a Mahan Air flight that landed at the Delhi airport at around 3 am, officials said, adding that they were later taken to Jaisalmer in an Air India flight for being quarantined.

The first batch of 58 Indian pilgrims were brought back from Iran last Tuesday and the second group of 44 Indian pilgrim arrived from there on Friday.

Iran is one of the worst-affected countries by the coronavirus outbreak and the government has been working to bring back Indians stranded there. Over 700 people have died from the disease in Iran and nearly 14,000 cases have been detected.

Jaishankar had told Rajya Sabha last week that the government was focusing on evacuating Indians stranded in Iran and Italy as these countries are facing an "extreme situation".

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News Network
June 1,2020

Washington, Jun 1: Police fired tear gas outside the White House late Sunday as major US cities were put under curfew to suppress rioting as anti-racism protestors again took to the streets to voice fury at police brutality.

With the Trump administration branding instigators of six nights of rioting as domestic terrorists, there were more confrontations between protestors and police and fresh outbreaks of looting.

Violent clashes erupted repeatedly in a small park next to the White House, with authorities using tear gas, pepper spray and flash bang grenades to disperse crowds who lit several large fires and damaged property.

Local US leaders appealed to citizens to give constructive outlet to their rage over the death of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis, while night-time curfews were imposed in cities including Washington, Los Angeles and Houston.

One closely watched protest was outside the state capitol in Minneapolis' twin city of St. Paul, where several thousand people gathered before marching down a highway.

"We have black sons, black brothers, black friends, we don't want them to die. We are tired of this happening, this generation is not having it, we are tired of oppression," said Muna Abdi, a 31-year-old black woman who joined the protest.

"I want to make sure he stays alive," she added in reference to her son, aged three.

Hundreds of police and National Guard troops were deployed ahead of the protest.

At one point, some of the protestors who had reached a bridge were forced to scramble for cover when a truck drove at speed after having apparently breached a barricade.

The driver was later taken to hospital after the protestors hauled him from the vehicle, although there were no immediate reports of other casualties.

There were other large-scale protests in cities including New York and Miami.

Washington's mayor ordered a curfew from 11:00 pm until 6:00 am, as a report in the New York Times said that President Donald Trump had been rushed by Secret Service agents into an underground bunker at the White House on Friday night during an earlier protest.

Stores ransacked

Large-scale violence has rocked many US cities in recent days, and looters ransacked stores in a neighborhood of Philadelphia on Sunday.

In the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, looting was reported at stores in a popular beachside shopping center.

Officials in LA -- a city scarred by the 1992 riots over the police beating of Rodney King, an African-American man -- imposed a curfew from 4:00 pm Sunday until dawn.

"Please, use your discretion and go early, go home, stay home and help us make sure that those who want to change this conversation from being about racial justice to be about burning things and looting things, don't win the day," the city's mayor Eric Garcetti said on CNN.

The shocking videotaped death last Monday of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis ignited the nationwide wave of outrage over law enforcement's repeated use of lethal force against unarmed African Americans.

Floyd stopped breathing after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and is due to make his first appearance in court on Monday. Three other officers with him have been fired but for now face no charges.

Governor Tim Walz has mobilized all of Minnesota's National Guard troops  -- the state guard's biggest mobilization ever -- to help restore order.

Police fired tear gas and stun grenades to clear streets of curfew violators Saturday night in Minneapolis.

Walz extended a curfew for a third night Sunday and praised police and guardsmen for holding down violence. "They did so in a professional manner. They did so without a single loss of life and minimal property damage," he said.

"Congratulations to our National Guard for the great job they did immediately upon arriving in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last night," President Donald Trump tweeted, adding that they "should be used in other States before it is too late!"

The Department of Defense said that around 5,000 National Guard troops had been mobilized in 15 states as well as the capital Washington, with another 2,000 on standby.

The widespread resort to uniformed National Guards units is rare, and it evoked disturbing memories of the rioting in US cities in 1967 and 1968 in a turbulent time of protest over racial and economic disparities.

Trump blamed the extreme left for the violence, saying he planned to designate a group known as Antifa as a terrorist organization.

"The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly," added Attorney General Bill Barr.

'A nation in pain'

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Trump, who has often urged police to use tough tactics, was not helping matters.

"We are beyond a tipping point in this country, and his rhetoric only enflames that," she said on CBS.

Joe Biden, Trump's likely Democratic opponent in November's presidential election, visited the scene of one anti-racism protest.

"We are a nation in pain right now, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us," Biden tweeted, posting a picture of him speaking with an African-American family at the site where protesters had gathered in Delaware late Saturday.

Floyd's death has triggered protests beyond the United States, with hundreds rallying outside the US embassy in London in solidarity.

"I'm here because I'm tired, I'm fed up with it. When does this stop?" Doreen Pierre told AFP at the protest.

In Germany, England football international Jadon Sancho marked one of his three goals for Borussia Dortmund against Paderborn by lifting his jersey to reveal a T-shirt bearing the words "Justice for George Floyd".

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