Nagpur Mahila Bank investors protest political interference

A year after Nagpur Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd - though profit making - stopped public transactions on the instructions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and restricted its role to only recovery operations, the bank's depositors have started pointing their accusing finger at political interference to be the hindrance to the bank restoring its normal function.

Now, cloud of confusion shrouds the fate of the cooperative bank, as the Maharashtra Cooperation Department has reportedly asked the three-member board of administrators, it recently appointed for taking charge of the bank, to abstain from doing so.

The instructions to the three administrators have been given orally, and none of the administrators has taken any step to move into the bank. Assistant registrar G G Walde, who has been supervising operations after the board of the bank was superseded, is still at the helm of affairs.

The administrators, who were supposed to replace Walde, were named by the Cooperation Department. Seshrao Chavan, district deputy registrar, Bhandara; Sandand Uike, assistant registrar (Hingna); and Nitin Shirbate, an officer.

There are rumours that the an altogether new team would be put in place instead of the three officials whose names were announced earlier. Top officials in the Cooperation Department, too, said that political considerations behind this move cannot be ruled out.

Meanwhile, the depositors have severely criticised the move. According to Ramesh Gire, chairman, Mahila Bank Kahtedar Kruti Samiti, it is not advisable to have a single man at the helm. A board comprising the Department's officials must take charge, he said. Gire also flayed the Department for delaying the change of guard. The bank badly needs speedy recovery of dues in order to improve its financial situation, he added.

The RBI had imposed restrictions on withdrawals by depositors as a salvage measure after the bank had faced a panic run following media reports of large-scale anomalies in the bank. Because of that no depositor can withdraw more than Rs 1,000 from the bank unless it is proved a dire need. Even such cases need a prior RBI approval.

This has left the depositors - most of them senior citizens who invested their lifetime savings in the bank - in the lurch. The depositors, having formed various groups, have been raising demands that the RBI lift the restrictions. A few of them have also moved the court against the bank.

One year ago, the bank ran into rough times after the city-based company Hemani group had allegedly duped it of Rs 4.5 crore. Aman Hemani, his wife Rajshree and others, accused in the case, were arrested. Offences were also registered against most senior board members of the bank and a few managers.