PMC Bank Crisis: Sanjay Gulati, 51, went for a protest march outside a city court on Monday morning and had been under stress because of his deposit being stuck in PMC Bank, another depositor said.
MUMBAI:An account holder at the Punjab Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank, who had deposits of over
Rs. 90 lakh with the troubled bank, died in Mumbai on Monday. He died of a heart attack hours after attending a protest by distressed customers of the bank outside a Mumbai court.
Sanjay Gulati, 51, went for the protest march on Monday morning. He had been stressed about his deposits at PMC, said Manali Narkar, who was among the protesters.
The Oshiwara resident went to the protest with his 80-year-old father. Hours later, he collapsed at the dinner table, a senior official at the Oshiwara police station was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
Mr Gulati, who was an engineer with the Jet Airways, had lost his job when the airline shut operations. He has a wife and two children, including a specially-abled son.
Depositors, friends and family members of Sanjay Gulati gathered outside his home this afternoon. “Any of us could face a similar fate… Six of my family members have accounts at PMC Bank,” a neighbour told media.
“When will get the government and the RBI wake up?” said a woman whose three family members have accounts in PMC Bank.
Depositors have planned a candle light march this evening.
The crisis at the cooperative bank was set off after real estate firm HDIL defaulted on loans from PMC Bank worth Rs. 4,355 crore.
The PMC Bank has been placed under “directions” by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) since last month. This means that depositors’ withdrawals have been capped. The central bank on Monday raised withdrawal limit for account holders of PMC Bank to Rs. 40,000 from earlier withdrawal limit of Rs. 25,000.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, campaigning for the October 21 state election, has assured that he will take up the PMC Bank crisis with the centre. “We will request the centre to help depositors get their money back. I will personally be following up on this,” he said today.
“We will do everything possible in our capacity to help the depositors of PMC Bank,” Mr Fadnavis asserted while launching the BJP’s election manifesto.
Worried depositors of the bank, which has deposits of over Rs. 11,000 crore, have been protesting across Mumbai. Last week, they protested at the site of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s press conference. Later, they met Ms Sitharaman, who subsequently urged the RBI Governor to look into the concerns of the customers.
Four people, including promoters of HDIL to which PMC Bank made the sour loans, and the bank’s former chairman and ex-managing director have so far been arrested in connection with the latest banking fraud case to spook the country’s depositors and investors.
Rakesh Wadhwan, the chairman and managing director of HDIL, and his son Sarang Wadhawan were named in a police complaint that also accused the bank’s management of concealing non-performing assets and disbursing loans to HDIL leading to a loss of at least Rs. 4,300 crore.
The Enforcement Directorate filed a money-laundering case against the Wadhwan brothers and had raided six places in Mumbai.
The PMC case has sparked renewed concerns about the health of India’s troubled banking sector, which has been rocked by a multi-billion dollar fraud at a state-run lender, the collapse of a major infrastructure lender, bad loans at state-run banks and a liquidity squeeze that has hit shadow lenders.
Prasanta Patnaik