Lauding the first Union Budget of the third decade of the 21st century, which was presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, senior Sahakar Bharati co-operator Satish Marathe said that after a long time a budget which brings smiles to the cooperative sector has been presented.
The Parity brought between cooperatives and corporates is a welcome move as it would benefit large cooperatives such as Amul and Campco on the one hand and IFFCO and Kribhco on the other, Marathe opined.
Another major announcement in the budget was the FM announcement related to urban cooperative banks, he said. Urban cooperative banks always demanded that they should be brought under total control of RBI and the FM has made announcement to this effect when she said Cooperative Banks will be strengthened by amending the Banking Regulation Act, Marathe stated.
“Once the UCBs are under complete control of RBI, there is no need for large UCBs such as Saraswat Bank or Cosmos Bank to go private. Also, the need for other smaller UCBs to convert to small finance banks would vanish”, Marthe underlined.
Third point which Marathe appreciated in FM’s speech was her promise to enable UCBs to raise capital. The latter was a major stumbling block; though the contours of how it would be done are yet to be
clear, the acceptance of the very idea is a welcome move, he said. On the lines of permission to social enterprises to raise capital, UCBs may be allowed to go SEBI’s route, he felt.
Marathe also welcomes the fact that the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) has been permitted to increase Deposit Insurance Coverage to Rs. 5 lakh from Rs.1 lakh per depositor. “We also propose to implement risk based premium after 3 years as we are confident that more than 90% banks would never have to face such situation” the FM said.
Christening it a cooperative friendly budget Marathe said that he plans to discuss felicitating the Finance Minister among Sahakar Bharati friends for such a sector friendly budget.