This Manmohan Singh is Vijay Mallya’s guarantor

TNN

Pilibhit, 21 May 2016: After the Mumbai office of a nationalized bank identified him as a guarantor for business magnate Vijay Mallya, a local farmer from here has been allegedly deprived of banking facilities as well as all kinds of government-sponsored schemes after the bank froze his account. The farmer himself has no idea why officialdom has fallen on his life suddenly.

 

Manmohan Singh, from Khajuria Naviram village under Bilsanda block of Pilibhit, owns eight acres of land and had an uneventful life till December, 2015. He had two bank accounts with the Bank of Baroda’s local branch. The Mumbai office of the bank sent instructions to the local bank manager that Singh had been guarantor to Vijay Mallya, and that therefore his accounts were to be frozen.

 

"I do not understand how this happened. I do not know anything about Mallya and have never visited Mumbai in my life. Because the bank froze my accounts, I can’t avail any government-sponsored scheme. I was forced to sell my entire wheat crop to private traders at very low prices. I could not get MSP because payment for that is directly made to the bank account, which in my case is frozen," Singh said, talking to TOI.

 

For the forthcoming paddy crop too, Singh can’t avail any subsidy provided by agriculture and plant protection departments on the purchase of high-quality paddy seeds, insecticides and other agricultural inputs. Moreover, all the other banks in the area have refused to allow him to open a new account.

 

"The matter hasn’t been brought to my notice yet. I will certainly look into it whenever he submits a written complaint to me," district magistrate Masoom Ali Sarvar told TOI.

 

The branch manager of BoB’s Naand branch, Mange Ram, told that Manmohan Singh had been operating both the bank accounts for the last 8 years and the bank always found him absolutely genuine in his dealings. He said that he has sent a favourable report about Singh to the Mumbai regional office but it has still not taken any steps.

 

Singh told TOI that he had sent a letter to BoB’s Mumbai regional office clarifying his position but the office is still keeping mum over his grievance. The bank has also not clarified to him how his name came up in connection with Mallya in the first place.