Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC), a fraud-hit lender is looking for a merger opportunity after failing to recover funds from a big defaulter amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reported.

In a court filing, the bank’s administrator said that the multi-state lender has already approached major banks.

The administrator said that PMC has “tried to engage with the major banks of the country to request for a merger.”

However, no details regarding the banks have been divulged, the report added.

Last year, authorities began probing PMC for the fraud and after detecting financial irregularities the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) – the country’s central bank – had taken over its operations.

For one year, thousands of bank depositors were unable to access their deposits, after the withdrawal limit was capped at INR100,000 ($1,359) by the RBI.

Authorities have found that a bulk of PMC Bank’s loan book was disbursed to HDIL – an Indian real estate company.

As a result, they are also investigating HDIL officials for the fraud. However, HDIL has denied any wrongdoing.

RBI appointed Jai Bhagwan Bhoria as the administrator to recover the dues in a bid to bailout the lender.

In the filing, Bhoria said that HDIL owes INR69.81bn ($949m) to PMC. However, at INR11.6bn ($157.56m) its securities’ realisable value was “grossly insufficient”.

The sale of certain other securities has been impacted too, because courts were not fully functional during the pandemic, Reuters said.

The administrator added that the sale of a HDIL yacht anchored in Sri Lanka was affected as well, since potential buyers could not inspect it because of the lockdown.

Additionally, as the Mumbai International Airport was closed to visitors, two HDIL’s aircraft could not be auctioned.

Established in 1984, PMC is a regional lender operating 137 branches in India.