Punjab National Bank has recovered 278.66 crore rupees during the financial year 2018-19 as a penalty for not having the minimum amount in the accounts. This amount has been recovered from about one crore 27 lakh customers across the country.
This is revealed by the information received through RTI. Chandrashekhar Gaur, an RTI activist in Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh, had sought information from Punjab National Bank about how many account holders have been recovered from savings and current accounts in the last two financial years without the minimum amount.
As per the details provided by PNB, in the financial year 2018-19, Punjab National Bank (PNB) recovered Rs 278.66 crore from the account holders as a penalty for not having the minimum amount in bank accounts. This amount is 32 percent more than the amount recovered in the last financial year.
As per the details, PNB has recovered a total of Rs 226.36 crore from 1,22,53,756 savings accounts and a total of Rs 52.30 crore from 5,37,692 current accounts during FY 2018-19.
This amount was recovered due to not having the minimum amount in these accounts. In this way, PNB recovered a total of Rs 278.66 crore as penalty from about 1.27 crore account holders (savings and current) of both types during the financial year 2018-19.
Gaur said, "The penalty levied by the bank for not keeping the minimum balance in the customer's accounts is actually a penalty on his poverty. It should be reviewed immediately in the larger public interest, and recovery of all such penalty charges should be stopped with immediate effect. '
On the other hand, Punjab National Bank has recovered a total of Rs 151.66 crore from savings accounts and Rs 59.08 crore from 5,94,048 current accounts as a penalty from account holders during the financial year 2017-18.
Thus, during the financial year 2017-18, the bank collected a total amount of Rs 210.74 crore from both types (savings and current) account holders of about 1.28 crore as penalty for not maintaining minimum balance in the accounts.
