By Shri Devidas Tuljapurkar, General Secretary, Maharashtra Bank Employees Federation and Vice president, All India Bank Employees Association
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi under the initiative “Depositors First” is distributing Rs. 1,300 crore to the depositors of 16 failed urban cooperative banks out of the corpus of DICGC, in a function organized by the Government in association with RBI.
Why have those urban cooperative banks failed? Either due to the failure on the part of the Regulator i.e. RBI or due to an adverse economic situation for which it is the Government’s failure. In the background, the celebration by those who are responsible for the failure is ridiculous!
Since 1st April 2020, Government has extended coverage of insurance to the deposits from Rs. 1 lakh to 5 lakh. This is a welcome decision but simultaneously premium is also enhanced by 2 paisa for Rs 100 thus DICGC will get additional revenue of about Rs. 2,993 crore. This amount of Rs. 1,300 crore is being paid out of this income which banks are contributing obviously with the collection from depositors, may be indirect. DICGC has reserves of about Rs 1,29,900 cr. With the enhanced coverage 98.1% of depositors’ accounts are covered but an amount of 49.9 % only gets covered.
With the advent of the market economy, the customer is said to be the king of the market but here the customer is helpless. Now the Government has become so crazy that failure also is being celebrated! The Less said the better! Poor customers of PMC & Rupee cooperative bank are still waiting for their deposits. In the process, many of them have lost their lives. Our condolences to them.
