PMC Bank could be merged with Maharashtra State Co-op Bank

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, December 5

The Maharashtra Government has mooted the merger of troubled Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank with the Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank, the apex financial institution in the state’s co-operative sector.

”I have spoken to the MSC Bank chairman... we have suggested the merger of PMC Bank with the MSC bank in the interests of the depositors,” Maharashtra Minister Jayant Patil told reporters here.

Patil, who belongs to the Nationalist Congress Party, said the Maharashtra Government was prepared to work with the Reserve Bank of India in facilitating the merger.

Patil said the MSC bank was financially stronger and the merger process should be completed in less than two months’ time.

The RBI put the PMC Bank under its administrator after an estimated Rs 6,000 crore were improperly lent to the troubled HDIL group.

So far five directors of the PMC Bank including Chairman Waryam Singh are among twelve people to have been arrested in connection with the scam.

The Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank, which has its own share of controversies, is far bigger than PMC Bank with business amounting to more than Rs 35,000 crore, according to information put out by its officials. According to its officials, the MSC Bank is the largest co-operative bank in Asia with non-performing assets declining to 1.15
per cent over the past few years.