Face of Nation : Nirmala Sitharaman said she will speak with the RBI Governor this evening on the Punjab Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank crisis. She met a group of distressed customers of the cooperative bank in Mumbai this afternoon just before she addressed a press conference in the city. “I will once again talk to the Governor of Reserve Bank this evening to convey the distress of PMC clients,” Ms Sitharaman.
The customers had gathered outside the BJP office where Ms Sitharaman, the venue of her press conference. On Wednesday, PMC customers, who have argued that the revised Rs. 25,000 limit on withdrawals imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is still too little, protested outside a Mumbai court.
Carrying placards that read “No Bail, Only Jail”, they accused the RBI of not taking strict action against the erring officials and appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in the matter.
Last week Rakesh and Sarang Wadhwan, the promoters of the crisis-hit real estate firm HDIL, were arrested by the by the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police after their firm set off a crisis at PMC Bank by defaulting on loans worth Rs. 6,500.
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 loan issues at state-run banks and a liquidity squeeze that has hit shadow lenders. The RBI has responded to allay fears over the crisis.
