Employees of the beleaguered Prudential Cooperative Urban Bank today did not attend to their duties and staged dharnas before the premises of defaulting loanees of the bank. They raised slogans in front of the offices of Amruta Castle hotel and Padmalaya Studios which owe large sums to the bank.
With this, all the 19 branches in the city remained closed today. Rajiv Reddy, the promoter of the Amrutha Castle Hotel and the Country Club group, was not present when the demonstrators mobbed the hotel. The group owes about Rs 40 crore to the bank.
Of the 390 employees of the bank, about 250 employees participated in the protest. According to P R Shiva Prakash, the general secretary of the employees union of the bank, the bank had served notices on February 14 to 75 defaulters under the provisions of Securitisation Act to recover over Rs 100 crore, but in vain. Employees are also planning to register their protest before other loanees' premises as well in a similar manner.