An image showing the cutout of a Hindi newspaper article titled ‘There is no guarantee for savings of depositors in banks’ has gone viral on social media.
A Facebook user shared the image with a caption, मोदी तेरी हर गारंटी तेरी तरह ही झूठी है। तूने 9 साल में देश की जनता लूटी हैI (Modi, all your guarantees are a lie like you. You have looted the country’s people for nine years.)” The title of the post said in Hindi, ‘there is no guarantee for acche din anymore’ implying that the news article in the image is recent.
SouthCheck found that the newspaper clip was not recent.
On searching with the appropriate keywords, we found the same newspaper clipping uploaded on a Facebook account on November 17, 2017, which means that the news in the clippings is old.
According to the article in the clipping, the Central government is going to introduce The Financial Regulation and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017, which can put the depositors in danger of losing their savings because of a provision in the bill. This is in case the banks find themselves in financial trouble and are compelled to use depositors’ money to bail themselves out.
The viral newspaper clipping further read, “If the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill (FRDI Bill) 2017 is passed in the winter session of Parliament, then understand that it will be difficult to withdraw your money deposited in the bank in case of bankruptcy.”
The clipping is from the newspaper Haribhoomi, Delhi. However, we could not find the exact date it was published.
Taking that clue, we searched on Google with keywords about the bill and found a report published by the Scroll on December 14, 2017. The report defined the FRDI Bill 2017 as one that would leave depositors’ money without any protection and open to appropriation by the government.
We further searched with the keywords ‘Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill (FRDI Bill) 2017’ and found a report published by Lok Sabha.
The report stated, “The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill, 2017, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 10, 2017. The FRDI Bill has been referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee of both Houses, under the Chairpersonship of Shri Bhupender Yadav, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, for examination and presenting a Report to the Parliament by the last day of the first week of the Winter session, 2017.”
However, after facing backlash from the public, a report published on August 7, 2018, in LiveMint and other news outlets said the government withdrew the FRDI bill in Parliament.
Regarding depositor’s insurance on their deposits in the back, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s website, “Each depositor in a bank is insured up to a maximum of Rs 5,00,000 for both principal and interest amount held by him in the same right and same capacity as on the date of liquidation/cancellation of bank's licence or the date on which the scheme of amalgamation/merger/reconstruction comes into force.”
Hence, we can conclude that the viral newspaper clipping is old and the government has taken back the controversial FRDI Bill featured in the article.
