Balwinder Singh, a taxi driver from Punjab got the shock of his life on 7 November when he saw that his bank account, opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna, had ₹9,806 crore in it.
But, according to a report in Hindustan Times, Singh was swiftly brought back to earth when the money was debited from his bank account the very next day.
When Singh went to the State Bank of Patiala, where he has his Jan Dhan account, to figure out what exactly was happening, the employees reportedly took away his passbook with the ginormous entry in it and issued him a fresh one without it.
An Income Tax investigation has been ordered into the sudden ballooning and deflating of Singh's fortunes, but lead bank manager Sandeep Garg had a simple explanation for the incident. He told HT:
"The account holder happens to be a designated vendor for the bank. While passing a credit entry of ₹200, an assistant manager (accounts) wrongly inserted the bank's 11-digit internal Banking General Ledger account number in the amount column. The mistake was noticed the next day, following which the entry was reversed."
Now Singh, who enjoyed being a billionaire for only a day, has his usual balance of around ₹3,000 in his account.
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