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ShareAfter working all their life to save money for their retirement, they found their savings wiped out. Now a group of investors are fighting a pitched battle to get back their hard-earned money.
AN Shrinivasan trudges along the road, carrying a bagful of documents. It seems to weigh heavily on the 76-year-old's lightweight frame. Shrinivasan, a cook at the Shankarmath in Matunga, has been carrying this bag around for the past three years.
Each time the name of the South Indian Co-operative Bank Limited (SICBL) comes up, he hopes that the next news he'll hear will be about its revival.
Shrinivasan is one of the 34,000 senior citizens who found their trust in the 86-year-old bank shattered when the RBI declared moratorium on SICBL on August 8, 2004, and their life savings were locked up in the sick bank's vaults.
Since 2004, over a 100 seniors have lost their lives due to lack of adequate money to pay off medical expense or stress caused by the closure.
"I have undergone two operations since 2004," says Shrinivasan, who lost his precious savings of Rs 75,000. "I desperately required money. But my savings were of no use when I really needed them".
Last week, Shrinivasan, alongwith 100 other senior account holders, held a one-day hunger strike to remind the RBI authorities that they are still fighting and will continue to do so.
They are conducting their fight in a well-organised manner through a forum. A few days after the bank was declared sick, seven seniors decided to come together and form the SICBL Depositors Forum as a medium to reach the concerned authorities. Now it has over a 100 members.
T Venkateshwaran, president of the forum, has suggested various options to RBI for the bank's revival. "We don't want the bank to be liquidated.
We are all for a merger, and we are ready to forego the interest or make any sacrifices required to get our money back. My uncle died without his savings. It has become a mission for me now," says the 69-year-old, whose family lost close to Rs11 lakh.
For the past three years, Venkateshwaran and others have been living on hope that their persistence will pay off. If you go to the bank at around 9.30am on any given day, you'll find several seniors lined up outside to get their paperwork done, expecting that some day, a merger with another bank or a loan from the RBI will revive their lost savings.
Krishnamma Venkateswaran, 68, prays daily for all those who have suffered like her. She and her husband were both affected by the bank's closure.
"I had lost my only son in 1998. We were completely dependent on our money in the bank. We didn't put any money in other banks since we had a lot of trust in SICBL.
After the bank was declared sick, we had problems arranging for our daily food. There was no one to support us," she says. "My husband went into depression for some time after he lost all his money."
Every evening, many of these activists gather near the Shankarmath in Matunga to attend programmes at the Shanmukhananda Hall.
The discussion always veers towards their shared predicament. Eighty-year-old PNA Narayanan's family lost a total of Rs7 lakhs. "My daughter, my wife, my sister-in-law, and others had their accounts in this bank.
I regret not putting our money in different banks. But this bank gave a high interest rate to seniors, it was closer to our home, and above all, it had a great track-record," he says.
Vaidyanathan, 67, treasurer of the depositors' forum, says "Shankar Sharma, who started SICBL, was a trustworthy person.
I had an account in this bank since 1962. I was saving for my daughter's wedding, but ended up losing Rs7 lakh. And despite saving all my life, I was forced to find other ways to arrange for the money. I'm still carrying the burden," says Vaidyanathan.
Ventakeshwaran gets calls from seniors every day asking about the status of the bank and news about the revival. "We had saved money for our after-retirement life-for daughters' marriage, surgeries and health issues, travel or sustenance. We were let down. But we'll fight till the end."
