DICGC yet to settle claims of Gujarat co-op banks

The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC), a wing of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has not settled any claims made by co-operative banks which had gone bankrupt in the last two years.

The DICGC insures all deposits such as savings, fixed, current and recurring.

In spite of the claims made by the Gujarat government that it will work with DICGC to settle claims faster, nothing much has happened so far.

"More than Rs 900 crore of insured claims of the co-operative banks are lying with the DICGC, but so far none of them have been settled except for a few minor cases," said Prakash Gurjar, president, All Gujarat Co-operative Banks Depositors and Account Holders Association.

Following a representation from the association, DICGC had earlier appointed chartered accountants (CAs) to certify the claims under its new resolution. According to this, the claims have to be approved and certified by CAs.

Abbaji Amin Associates has been appointed to approve and certify the claims of General Co-operative Bank (Genco), while Kanti N Patel and

Associates has been appointed to certify the claims of Visnagar Co-operative.

Lakhs of depositors of Genco, Visnagar Nagrik Co-operative Bank and Charottar Co-operative have been waiting for their claims to be settled by DICGA, but in spite of the CAs submitting its audited report on February 22, 2004, so far none of the depositors has got the insured money from DICGA.

According to rules, the claims of insured amounts has to be cleared and disbursed in 60 days. The Charottar Bank had submitted its claim in December 2003.

General Co-operative Bank was liquidated on July 2, 2003 and its claim was filed on August 29, 2003, while Visnagar Nagrik Bank was liquidated on July 11, 2003, and claims are not yet disbursed.

Genco's claims worth around Rs 72 crore of the insured money of 78000 depositors with DICGA, while Visnagar Bank claims Rs 291 crore of insured money of around 2.76 lakh depositors and Charottar Co-operative Bank has Rs 147 crore insured with DICGA of around 1.5 lakh depositors.