PMC victims exhort Shah to intervene, seek parity with Private banks

The PMC Bank Account Holders Forum has written a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday and made an appeal for urgent resolution of grievances of PMC Bank stakeholders.

More than 19 months have passed and around 100 depositors of the bank have died but still PMC Bank depositors are moving pillar to post to get their hard-earned money back. They also launched a massive campaign on social media criticizing the central government for not taking any initiative towards reviving the bank. They ask if Laxmi Vilas Bank, Yes Bank can be revived in a week why not PMC Bank?

In their letter they wrote, “We write to you on behalf of stakeholders of the PMC and as a manifestation of our sincere appeals sent to you by mail earlier for resolution of the bank with an equitable, justifiable as well as humane perspective in the wake of in the wake of the promulgation of the Banking Regulation Amendment Act, 2020 in September, 2020”.

“As you are cognizant of the fact that the imposition of the moratorium on the Bank has impacted the lower middle class and the middle-class segment. They have been further impacted by the persistently high inflation rate and growing economic recession resultant of the COVID induced economic crisis.

“Today about 10 lakh PMCB families’ penury is throwing them into the pool of depression and killing innocent lives. Since the past 18 months as there is no respite in sight for all the naive victims”, they further wrote.

Why are the innocent PMC Bank depositors made to bear the consequences of the malfeasance of the Bank management & authorities? they asked pointedly to Shah, the high-profile BJP leader and a close associate of the Prime Minister.

The PMC Bank stakeholders had expected the promulgation of the Banking Regulation Amendment Act,2020 would help them but the fact remains that the GoI as well as RBI rushed to resolve the crisis ridden YES Bank and Lakshmi Vilas Bank and left PMC Bank depositors high and dry.

They complained that the high heeled clientele of Private Commercial Banks is accorded protection by recapitalisation or restructuring of the Commercial Banks but the stakeholders of the Cooperative banks are denied equitable treatment by means of restructuring and recapitalisation of the Cooperative banks despite the banks being faced with banking frauds”, PMC Bank Account holder forum underlined.