Gujarat State Cooperative Bank which was in the news during demonetization, earned a net profit of Rs 40 crore and disbursed 15 percent dividend to the members, announced its Chairman Ajaybhai H.Patel during the Annual General meeting of the bank in Ahmadabad last week.
The AGM was attended by top-notch cooperators of the state including Deputy Chief Minister of the State, Minister Shankarbhai Chaudhary, NCUI Vice President G H Amin, NCUI Government Nominee, Jyotindra Mehta, NAFSCOB Chairman Dileep Sanghani and several others.
BJP President Amit Shah is also on its Board but due to his preoccupation he could not attend, said a source.
In his Presidential speech, Ajay Patel focused on the need of technology in the activities of the bank and promotion of cashless transactions- an idea being vigorously pursued by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Gujarat State Cooperative Bank was established in the year 1960. It is a network of nearly 28 Lac farmers of 8100 PACS affiliated with GSCB through 17 DCCBs.
However, Indian Cooperative correspondent had an awful experience gathering news from Chairman of Gujarat State Cooperative Bank (GSC) Mr Patel who was less than civil in his behavior when our correspondent asked him to share the details of the Annual General Meeting.
When he called Patel, he shouted at him and yapped the correspondent should talk to his Personal Secretary. He had no patience to share the phone number of his PS and before the correspondent could put the next questions he slammed the phone.
Committed to bringing the news to its readers the correspondent called him again to get the phone number of his Personal secretary and Mr Patel was just a ball of anger again. He yelled saying “I am in conference and I don’t want to talk to you”.
Believing that he and his PS are demi gods, Patel imagined that everybody must have their phone numbers. Indian Cooperative believes in the right of privacy of an individual; it also believes that one may not be in a position to hold a conversation all the time but certainly believes there is a decent way of informing a caller of his preoccupation. Patel’s behavior was not worthy of the position he holds and Indian Cooperative condemns it with all the strength at its command.
Patel and cooperators of his ilk should note that Indian Cooperative is the only web news portal which covers news from the cooperative sector and attracts nearly 1.5 lac hits daily. It has always been trying its best to cover all developments of consequence in the cooperative world and thus making a small contribution in blunting the rebuff the cooperative world has invariably been receiving at the hands of the mainstream media. That the portal correspondent would meet with such incivilities was not in the least expected.