New Delhi, Dec 3 (NationPress) During the Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Neeraj Dangi from Congress vehemently condemned the insufficient Rs 5 lakh deposit insurance limit set by the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC). He urged that this limit be elevated to a minimum of Rs 25 lakh per depositor.

“Should any bank (commercial or cooperative) collapse, every form of deposit—including savings, current accounts, fixed deposits (FD), or recurring deposits—is insured only up to Rs 5 lakh. Any amount exceeding this threshold is solely the depositor's risk. This limit was established on February 4, 2020, following the Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC Bank) crisis. Prior to this, the limit had been just Rs one lakh for decades, as indicated by the latest DICGC report (March 2024),” Dangi stated.

“Among 1,497 insured banks, only 43.8 percent of total deposits are fully protected under the current Rs 5 lakh limit. Alarmingly, 56.2 percent of total deposits remain entirely uninsured, with a significant portion belonging to senior citizens who deposit their lifelong savings in banks for safety. If a major urban cooperative or small finance bank fails, the hard-earned savings of countless senior citizens could disappear in an instant,” he added.

“In the past year alone (2023-24), 431 urban cooperative banks have either collapsed or experienced severe stress,” he noted.

In a crisis similar to the PMC Bank incident, the DICGC had to disburse approximately Rs 17,000 crore to numerous depositors, Dangi mentioned. “The insurance premium (currently set at 0.12 percent paid by banks and not charged to customers) should remain entirely the responsibility of the banks,” he emphasized, advocating that raising deposit insurance would foster increased trust in the banking sector.

Additionally, Priyanka Chaturvedi, a Rajya Sabha MP from Shiv Sena (UBT), brought attention to the escalating problem of food adulteration and substandard or spurious medicines across the nation, labeling it a “national health emergency that is claiming innocent lives daily.”

Addressing the issue during Zero Hour, the MP revealed she had previously communicated with the Union Health Minister about this matter and reiterated her plea to the government through the House—indicating that the scale of food adulteration and contaminated medicines has surpassed all limits.

“From tainted cough syrups that have tragically taken the lives of infants, to low-quality medicines readily available in the market. The food adulteration leading to cancer across the nation must be controlled, necessitating stricter measures and punitive actions against those violating these standards,” she concluded.