Sri Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank Depositors Fear They May Lose Their Savings After RBI Action

Over the past few years, India has seen several banking scams which if put together the sum is so astronomical that a common man cannot even fathom that such numbers do exist.?

Be it the scam involving Vijay Mallya, the PNB scam by Nirav Modi, the Lakshmi Vilas Bank scam or the Punjab and Maharashtra Co Operative Bank scam, while the defaulters get away or buy time from courts, a lot of ordinary people will be on the receiving end of the Reserve Bank of India's actions.?

The most notable case in recent times was the PMC Bank scam.Thousands of people, who had their life's savings deposited in PMC bank were left in the lurch due to no fault of theirs, but some top bank executives.?

After the nearly Rs 6500 crore bad loan to Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) group companies by PMC surfaced RBI put the bank under severe restrictions, the most important of them was the cap on withdrawals.?

The initial amount allowed by RBI was just Rs 1,000. This was increased to Rs 10,000 per depositor and later to Rs 25,000. The RBI again revised it to Rs 40,000 and later to Rs 50,000 per depositor.?

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This was a nightmare for the depositors who had their life savings stuck in the bank, in limbo. Some had saved their pension money for their children's marriage, to buy a house/car, while others wanted money for emergency surgeries. But they had nowhere to go.Some seven people have died of cardiac arrests or suicides since the bank was put under RBI action.?

Even as thousands of PMC depositors wait to know about the future of their life's savings, there is an eerily similar story coming from Bengaluru.More than 9,000 depositors of the Sri Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank which has ten branches in the Karnataka capital, were in a rude shock after they were told that they can only withdraw Rs 35,000 from their accounts for the next six months.?

Just like in the case of PMC, it was bad loans that none of the ordinary depositors had anything to do with, landed the bank in trouble.As the news spread depositors rushed to the bank branches, but to no avail.

"My husband has a fixed deposit here - around Rs 15-20 Lakh. He is retired. We're dependent on it. When we got the message we were disturbed. But when we came here, the advisor in the bank told us that the deposit is safe. But we need to wait for 6 months. We're not happy," a depositor told ANI.?

Several others too shared their story on social media.? ? ? ??

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The RBI has not canceled the licence but it cannot borrow funds, accept fresh deposits, disburse or agree to disburse any payment, enter into any compromise or arrangement and sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of any of its properties or assets except as notified in the RBI directions dated January 2, 2020.