MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the moratorium on Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank, which restricts withdrawals for a further period of three months from March 23, 2020 to June 22, 2020.

RBI has said that the withdrawal limit, which has been progressively hiked to Rs 50,000, has enabled 78% of depositors to recover their funds. However, there are still thousands of depositors and co-operative credit societies whose members’ funds are stuck in PMC. “The RBI has been discussing with various authorities the expeditious sale of securities and recovery of loans. Due to various factors, including legal processes, tangible outcomes are taking some time,” RBI said in a statement.

The Bombay high court on January 15 had appointed a three-member committee headed by a retired judge to sell the encumbered assets of Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) to recover dues payable to the bank. RBI had approached the Supreme Court for a stay against this order on the grounds that assets need to be sold as part of the bank’s resolution plan. PMC Bank was placed under a moratorium on September 23, 2019, after a bulk of the deposits lent to HDIL through thousands of fictitious accounts turned into bad loans.

Clarificiation: The report ‘Withdrawal curbs for PMC Bank a/cs extended by 3 mths’, carried in the March 22 TOI Print edition, inadvertently reported that the withdrawal limit is Rs 75,000. The general withdrawal limit for PMC Bank continues to be Rs 50,000. The error is regretted.

