District Cooperative Banks got Rs 5,000 crore from November 10-13

Mumbai: Are the astronomical deposits made by district cooperative banks’ customers responsible for the government deciding to stop these financial institutions from exchanging old notes? A list leaked by a bank employee of a district bank shows that within three days — November 10 and 13 —  the 31 banks and the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank Ltd collected more than Rs 5,000 crore. These banks are mostly headed by politicos.

District Cooperative Banks were stopped from exchanging notes on day one, November 9, but they petitioned the government, which gave them the go-ahead, and they started exchanging notes from November 10. However, on November 14, they were sent out a circular from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) banning them from exchanging notes, after which they approached the court.

The highest collection was seen by Pune District Cooperative bank with Rs 662 crore followed by Satara with Rs 553 crore. While the Mumbai bank collected Rs 170 crore, Thane collected Rs 288 crore. Sangli saw RS 494 crore deposited and Kolhapur Rs 255 crore.

Advocate Akhilesh Chaubey, representing the banks in the high court, said that the figures are authentic. However, he couldn’t give the figures of the earlier collection.

However, when asked the reason why the ban on them was imposed, and if it had anything to do with the huge figures and the fact that many politicians comprise the top management of district cooperative banks, Mr Chaubey said, “We have a huge customer base and mostly societies deal in cash and hence such huge numbers are seen.”  “The figures in the list are authentic and we have made it a part of the petition too. We can give the collection figures prior to demonetisation by Monday,” said Mr Chaubey.

Alpana Killawala, the RBI spokesperson told this paper, “I cannot comment on data that is not yet made public.” However, a senior RBI official, when shown the data, said, “The amount of money deposited in these banks was huge, raising concerns and hence it could be possibly one of the reasons why the district banks were barred from exchanging old currency notes.” According to Mr Chaubey, the Supreme Court should take the decision early as the banks are suffering major losses because of this ban. “Banks are losing Rs 100 crore every day because of the old notes stuck with them. The RBI has to think and this is a serious issue, which should be heard by apex court as early as possible,” said Mr Chaubey.