Nine banks exposed to Madhavpura Bank
Mumbai: The Madhavpura Mercantile Bank crisis has claimed more victims. According to the Central Bureau of Investigation, in addition to the Bank of India, nine other banks have exposures in the Madhavpura fallout. These banks are, Bank of Maharashtra, Andhra Bank, Dena Bank, Federal Bank, IndusInd Bank, Apex Cooperative Bank, Kalupur Commercial Cooperative Bank, Development Credit Bank and Jankalyan Sahakari Bank.

These nine banks are saddled with Rs 156 crore of overnight exposure to Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank, having lent money to the bank between March 8 and March 12.

Of these the Apex Cooperative Bank had lent the highest amount of Rs 49 crore in exchange of government securities worth Rs 28 crore and fixed deposits worth Rs 15 crore of Madhavpura Bank. Following this is Bank of Maharashtra saddled with a default of Rs 20 crore, Kalupur Bank, Rs 19 crore, and Federal Bank, Rs 5 crore.

However, these banks are still hopeful of recovering their dues and thus have not registered a first information report with the police.
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Gujarat Government opposes liquidation of Madhavpura Bank
Ahmedabad: Almost 22 days after the collapse of the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank, the Gujarat government has reacted. At a high level ministerial meeting held at Ahmedabad the Gujarat chief minister, Mr Keshubhai Patel said that Gujarat government is against the liquidation of the Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank (MMCB) and wants it to be merged with some of the better-off cooperative banks in the state.

The government feels that the liquidation of the bank would only harm the interests of the small investors. It held the view that that as the bank was a multi-state bank as it was governed by central registrar of cooperatives and RBI. The Regional Registrar of cooperatives had no role in the matter.
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NHB likely to go in for out-of -court settlement
Mumbai: The National Housing Bank (NHB) has agreed to negotiate an out-of-court- settlement for its nine-year Rs 1,529-crore dispute with ANZ Grindlays Bank with regard to the 1992 stock scam case involving the two banks.

This decision on the part of NHB comes after an ANZ offer made earlier this year to pay NHB Rs 765 crore and settle the dispute. With the Supreme Court hearing regarding case scheduled for next week this decision comes virtually at the eleventh hour.

Following the decision, NHB has constituted a committee to negotiate the offer. It is understood that NHB wants a 60:40 settlement by which it would get Rs 910 crore, while ANZ wants to settle the dispute by paying 50 percent of the dues.

Sources said the move would not require a clearance from the Reserve Bank of India and the finance ministry since the NHB board had representatives from the central bank and the ministry.
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DoT playing favourites, allege license applicants
New Delhi: The manner in which the government has issued letters of intent (LOI) to only a few large telecom players has become a contentious issue for other applicants for basic services operator licence. The government has so far issued only 40 LOIs out of a total 147 applications. No fresh licences are expected this week.

One of the applicants alleged that the government was favouring a few players while intentionally adopting delaying tactics to avoid rush at the time of allocating spectrum. Apart from Reliance, HFCL and the Tatas none of the players have so far received the LOIs. Among those waiting are ModiCorp, Essar, Bharati and BPL.

Officials in the department of telecom, on the other hand, say that the applicants submit incomplete applications in the first instance and secondly do not respond fast enough to clarifications that are sought.

While terming these excuses as hollow, some of the applicants say the government has been indifferent to their concerns. "We have been camping at DoT for the last one week to get our applications processed faster, but we are being given new excuses everyday," said a senior executive of a telecom company.

DoT officials said that all the remaining cases where clarifications were sought have been received and are being processed. We expect to issue fresh LoIs only next week owing to a number of holidays this week.
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