'Banks to honour revival plan'

Ahmedabad, Apr 23: Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank (MMCB) chairman Jairambhai Patel has objected to a certain bank's attempt to hasten recovery of its money blocked in the scam through judicial route, espcially when the beleaguered bank's revival plan is still on.

In a statement issued here, Mr Patel regretted the particular bank demanding its money back directly from MMCB, suggesting the latter's 28 branches be sold to recover Rs 137-crore blocked with MMCB.

Mr Patel feels that skirting the process of the revival plan would affect the process, which was taken up by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as per a resolution endorsed by the Union Ministry of Finance.

Ever since he took over as the chairman of the beleagured bank in November 16, 2001, Mr Patel said that MMCB had already recovered Rs 478-crore as against Rs 1,485-crore depositors' money blocked in the process. He pointed out that deposits of 268 co-operative banks of Gujarat and 12 banks of Maharashtra are also blocked in the scam.

While the scam came to light on March 12, 2001, the revival plan came into force on August 24.

UNI