The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has deposits worth over Rs 980 crore in the crisis-hit Yes Bank, where the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday capped withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per depositor. "We have nearly Rs 984 crore deposited with the bank," Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar told The Indian Express on Friday. The amount includes the civic body's revenue collection from various sources like water tax, property tax, building permission fees and other heads. Hardikar said the civic vody has been depositing the funds collected from revenues with Yes Bank since 2017, when the PCMC decided to transfer its deposits from other banks because of the higher rate of interest Yes Bank offered on deposits. "While other banks offered around 5 per cent interest, Yes Bank offered 7.5 to 8 per cent interest," he said. Hardikar said due process was followed when the civic body picked Yes Bank for its deposits. "Yes Bank was selected after all the banks were asked to submit their offers, indicating the rate of interest, for deposits. Since Yes Bank offered the highest rate of interest compared to other banks, we picked it," he said. The PCMC chief said since Yes Bank started facing troubles, the civic body has been consistently reducing its exposure to the bank. "We had around Rs 3,000 crore of deposits in the bank. We have been regularly withdrawing our deposits from Yes Bank and shifting it to other banks. We have nearly Rs 4,000 crore of deposits in other banks, including nationalised banks, as of today," said Hardikar. PCMC Chief Account Officer Jitendra Kolambe said since Friday morning, civic officials have been trying to find out the exact amount deposited with Yes Bank. "From our records, we found that Rs 984 crore of PCMC's deposits are with Yes Bank. The bank's server was down on Friday and therefore we could not find out the exact amount from the bank," he said. Kolambe said the civic administration has written a letter to the RBI, informing ithe apex bank about the PCMC deposits with the bank. However, Hardikar said the civic administration was not worried as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has already announced that depositors' money will be safe and a restructuring plan for the bank was on the cards. "Since the finance minister has announced that depositors' money will be safe, we don't have to worry about our money," he said. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) also has some deposits in Yes Bank, but civic officials were unable to confirm the exact amount. They said as much as Rs 366 crore was withdrawn from the bank in December last year. “We are looking at all PMC accounts in the bank. The exact amount we have in the bank can be ascertained in the next few days,” said Ulka Kalaskar, chief accountant of PMC.
