RBI holds meeting over coin-storage crisis of banks in Shirdi

Shirdi: The Reserve Bank of India has instructed nationalised banks to continue to accept coins deposited by the famous Saibaba temple at Shirdi in Maharashtra, the temple’s managing body said Wednesday.

Earlier, some banks, where the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust (SSST) has accounts, had expressed inability to accept huge amount of coins which are collected in the temple’s donation boxes every day.

The banks had cited lack of space for storing coins in their Shirdi branches as the reason.

The RBI convened a meeting at its Navi Mumbai office Wednesday and directed the banks to accept the coins and cash deposited by the temple authorities, said Deepak Muglikar, chief executive officer of SSST.

The temple trust suggested that as a temporary measure, it could make available rooms with security and CCTV cameras for keeping the coins on the banks’ behalf, and the Central bank agreed to the proposal, Muglikar told PTI.

Money deposited in the temple’s donation boxes is counted twice a week. On average, every counting yields coins worth Rs 5 lakh among the cash of around Rs two crore.

Last year, the temple had received cash donations of Rs 165 crore, of which Rs 4 crore were in the form of coins.

As of today, Rs 1.5 crore of the SSST’s money in the form of coins is with 11 banks where the trust has accounts, a trust official said.