Maha UCB Fed holds 43rd AGM; idea of Co-op Fund floated

Maharashtra Urban Cooperative Banks’ Federation organized its 43rd Annual General Meeting last week at Mumbai, which was attended by more than 300 delegates representing different urban cooperative banks.

The meeting was chaired by the federation Chairman Vidyadhar Anaskar. On this occasion 15 urban cooperative banks of Maharashtra were felicitated with awards in different categories for their remarkable achievements during 2021-22.

In his address, Anaskar stressed that in the changing environment, it is necessary to create ‘banking literacy’ among depositors associated with UCBs. This will definitely help in removing confusion created in the general public through false, misleading information by news channels, press and social media. With the use of an annual report, the bank can build literacy among depositors”.

In order to provide immediate liquidity support to UCBs in financial distress, Anaskar advocated for creating a ‘Cooperatives’ cooperation fund by district associations of UCBs at district as well as state level. Sharing some percent from profits of UCBs can be collected as the corpus of such funds and the equal amount may be contributed by the State Govt”, Anaskar said.

He further added that the profit earned from investing into such corpus might be utilized to provide liquidity to banks in financial stress. Anaskar also appealed to the members to meet the need for formation of Mutual Assistant Fund.

The Best Mahila Urban Co-operative Bank award was bestowed on Sanmitra Mahila Nagari Sahakari Bank Maryadit, Chandrapur whereas the award for UCB having deposits more than Rs 5000 crores was bagged by the Mumbai based SVC Co-operative Bank

In the UCBs having deposits more than 1,000 crore and less than Rs 2500 crore, the first and second prizes were given to Nasik Merchants Co-operative Bank Ltd and Vishweshwar Sahakari Bank Ltd., Pune respectively.

In the UCBs having deposits more than Rs 500 crores and less than 1000 crores category, the first prize was bagged by Bhagini Nivedita Sahakari Bank Ltd., Pune and second was received by Shri Kanyaka Nagari Sahakari Bank Ltd., Chandrapur and third by Latur Urban Co-operative Bank Ltd., Latur.

In the Unit UCBs category having deposits less than 100 crores, the first and second prizes were won by Shree Gajanan Nagari Sahakari Bank Ltd., Beed and Sai Sanjivani Co-operative Bank Ltd., Ahmednagar respectively.

In the Salary Earners UCB category, the first prize was bagged by Maharashtra Mantralaya and Allied Offices Co-op Bank and second was received by Municipal Cooperative Bank, Mumbai.

The federation Vice-Chairman Ramakant Khetan proposed a vote of thanks. There are 502 urban cooperative banks in Maharashtra, having a network of over 5700 branches.