In a shocking incident, a woman from Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad discovered that around 18 lakh she kept in a bank's locker for nearly a year and a half was infested with termites. Alka Pathak, who was known as Alka Pathak, kept the money in her daughter's locker in October 2022 for her daughter's wedding.
The incident came to light when Pathak was called by the bank for the locker's annual maintenance and KYC verification. When she opened the locker, she was startled to see that all the banknotes were badly damaged by termites. She immediately reported this to the bank's branch manager.
Pathak owns a small business and offers tuition classes. She had kept her savings in the locker in the form of cash and jewelry. Unaware of the precautions to be taken for locker storage, she put the cash with some jewelry to use as funds for her daughter's wedding, India Today reported.
She admitted that she was unaware of the conditions required for preserving cash and valuables in a bank locker. She also revealed that she kept money in the bank without knowing that it could not be stored in such a way. The branch manager immediately reported the incident and launched an investigation to assess the extent of the damage.
In February this year, a similar incident happened in Udaipur, Rajasthan. A woman kept Rs 2.15 lakh in a locker in the Punjab National Bank of Udaipur. Sunita Mehta, the owner of the money, was appalled when she discovered that the money was completely ruined. Rs. 2 lakh were put in a fabric bag, while Rs. 15,000 were kept outside the bag.
The manager exchanged the damaged Rs 15,000 to Rs 15,000 notes, he said in a statement. After returning home, Mehta found that the banknotes in the bag were completely infested with termites. The incident and the bank management were a concern for Mehta. The bank's manager sprayed termite repellant around the locker and asked other lockerholders to open their lockers.
The cash is in a bank locker in Udaipur, Rs.15 lakh.
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