The helpless depositors of Kapol Bank are forced to run from pillar to post with no sight of any help coming from any quarters. While RBI is happy after having put the UCB under directions, the Bank continues to bleed and suffer a loss of almost Rs 40 cr per anum.
It bears recall that the UCB was hit by a number of frauds and corporate mis-governance issues in 2012-13. There is a RBI Report of 2014 which clearly states lapses and involvement of Chairman, vice chairman and other people on various counts.
The bank is currently under RBI administrator, Mr. A.K.Khound with little improvement in sight. The UCB works under all-inclusive direction March 2017 as it has acquired hopeless financial health (-91% CRAR and 139 crs of NPA of 188 crs loan).
One of the victims Mitesh Vora, who is Chartered Accountant by profession and a shareholder of Kapol Cooperative Bank wrote to Indian Cooperative seeking media attention to make the deaf hear depositors’ demand.
Listing his demands Vora wrote “ First and foremost, we shareholders and deposit holders are urging CRCS to hold election at the earliest and the election needs to be held in a transparent manner as there are more than likely chances of last board putting their representatives and manipulate voting (we are not sure of KYC of shareholders. There were claims of bogus voting in last election 5 years back). Let the elected board come and take over the affairs of the bank in a professional manner, he asserted.
Vora has also attached extract of his revival Plan which the depositors have submitted to RBI and CRCS. “We have not heard anything back from them”, he said underling the callous approach of govt agencies. “We have formed a deposit holder group and holding meetings of deposit holders and reaching out to govt and RBI but to no avail so far”, he added.
“Main point of our proposal is 35% haircut by deposit holders. Bank has 415 crs of deposit. If everyone agrees then that brings appx. 145 crs of conversion of deposits in to shareholding (new preferential shares to be issued). This is enough to bring CRAR from -91% to more than 9% required as per regulations” Vora said explaining his plan.
“Even if we only ask depositors with more than 1 lakh amount (which is 275 crs), then also we can get number of 95 crs from 35% haircut and balance by capital infusion and NPA Recovery”, he has worked out the mathematics convincingly.
“At the end, we strongly feel that if regulator takes genuine interest, this bank can survive (it has survived such situations in past as well) and thousands of deposit holders money can be saved”, he hopes. But the big question is –is there anybody eager to listen to the pain of a victim?
“We would be very thankful if you can cover our story (innocent deposit holders) because we need the coverage to get due attention of govt and regulator”, the poor chap writes.
In a mail sent by Kapol Bank depositors late evening after meeting the Administrator, they expressed happiness as the Administrator has reportedly promised to conduct election after April post Lok Sabha election. The victims are keeping their fingers crossed.