Bank of Maharashtra shuts 51 branches, including 13 from Mumbai & Thane

The state-owned Bank Of Maharashtra (BoM) has shut 51 of its branches across the country as part of ‘cost-cutting measures’ being implemented in the scandal-hit banking industry.

The bank, on Monday, announced that it has closed down and merged these 51 branches for public convenience.

According to a senior official from the bank, the affected branches were in urban centres and have been identified for the action as they were declared nonviable and were incurring huge losses.

All 51 units have been closed down and merged with neighbouring branches, the official of the Pune-headquartered bank said. The BoM has around 1,900 branches all over India.

Of the ones that were shut, six were in Mumbai and seven in Thane.

The rest were in Pune (5), Jaipur (4), Nashik (3), Bengaluru (3), Amravati (2), Latur (2), Aurangabad (2), Jalgaon (2), Nagpur (2), Satara (2), Hyderabad (2), Chennai (2), Noida (1), Kolkata (1), Chandigarh (1), Raipur (1), Goa (1), Solapur (1) and Kolhapur (1).

This is the first such measure initiated by any public sector bank in Maharashtra.

The IFSC Code and MICR codes of these branches have also been cancelled and all the savings, current and other bank accounts have been transferred to the branches with which they have been merged.

All customers have been directed to deposit their cheque-books issued from the closed branches with the old IFSC/MICR Codes by November 30, and collect their payment instruments bearing the new branch’s IFCS/MICR codes.

The BoM cautioned that since the old IFSC/MICR Codes have been spiked and shall be discontinued permanently from December 31, the customers, henceforth, should conduct all their banking transactions only with the new IFSC/MICR Codes.

The closure comes weeks after Maharashtra police nabbed its Chairman-cum-Managing Director Ravindra Marathe and five others in connection with the Rs. 2,043 crore scam involving Pune-based realtor, DSK Group.