Cooperation Minister Amit Shah called a meeting at North Block in New Delhi on Wednesday to discuss issues plaguing the cooperative banking sector. Union Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman was also present in the meeting, which was attended by Co-op Secretary Gyanesh Kumar, among others.
The issues raised in the meeting related to the difficulties faced by cooperative banks. Discussions revolved around possible measures to overcome these problems.
In the meeting, all pending issues related to the cooperative sector were discussed in detail in accordance with the policy of the Government of India to treat the cooperative sector on par with other economic institutions, both as beneficiaries and participants.
At the beginning of the meeting, Shah thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the announcements related to income tax in the budget for the development of the cooperative sector and providing relief to the sugar cooperative sector. He also expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for giving momentum and continuous support to the cooperative sector.
A govt release issued on the meeting read “The Ministry of Cooperation, under the guidance of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, is continuously working to promote the cooperative based economic model and increase its reach at the grassroots level.”
It bears recall that a Nafcub team led by its President Jyotindra Mehta had met Amit Shah recently and had handed over a list of issues affecting the cooperative credit structure.
Talking to the Indian Cooperative, Mehta said “As of now I do not know what transpired in the meeting held in North Block but I know one thing that Amitbhai treats credit co-op structure as one of the most effective tools to empower common man.”
Of several issues before UCBs, the issue of priority sector lending has become the most challenging especially for those UCBs that fall under Tier-2 and Tier 3. The NAFCUB team comprising Mehta, D Krishna and CE also requested the Minister to help curb RBI’s tendency of applying small Finance Bank lending norms to UCBs.
Other issues relate to the creation of the post of a deputy governor in RBI exclusively for cooperative banks as out of a total number of 2613 of banks in the country, 2515 are cooperative banks and 98 are all other banks put together.
About 100 UCBs may lose licenses in the next one year on account of amendment in the DICGC act for release of payment up to Rs 5 lacs. It does not give any chance for either revival or merger of the bank that will save depositors of non-insured balances in their accounts.
Other demands include RBU should resume receiving applications for licensing of new banks by first announcing entry point norms, urban cooperative banking sector to be given permission to also get share of government business and UCBs should have freedom like commercial banks in gold loans.
