Thick-skinned Chairman of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Bank Dan Singh Rawat has refuted all the charges leveled by Nabard in its report and says “all is well” with the Bank. Worse, he finds loans given to the relatives of Directors and to liquor barons as non-issues. He pats himself on the back that at least the bank did not give loan to any industrialist!
It is obvious that the Co-operative under the BJP govt is no different as promised. It bears recall that the man under the lens USCB Chairman Dan Singh Rawat is a close associate of state cooperative minister, Dhan Singh Rawat.
When Indian Cooperative raised the matter before Rawat, he said there is no instance of any financial hanky panky. He said “the bank is not under scrutiny for any irregularities and is strictly following the RBI norms.” Nabard carries out routine inspection and has not found any shady transactions”, he added almost shamelessly in the face of mounting evidence against him.
Rawat, however failed to answer media disclosures made by Rajendra Prasad, Ex-MD who blamed the then general
manager (banking) Deepak Kumar(now the managing director) for the irregularities and sanctioning loans for liquor contracts. Prasad also said Kumar misled him and the board, reports First Post.
On the issue of sanctioning loans to Reeta Pant wife of Naveen Pant (director of the bank) to the tune of Rs 4.42 crore – the entire amount still being outstanding, the chairman said she is repaying her loan in installments. What a reply!
Reports add the bank has lent out huge loans to companies dealing in liquor and sugar, and also to small and medium farmers in violation of the very charter of a rural bank. It also lent money to the relatives of the board members without any collateral. But Rawat says nothing is amiss and the bank has sanctioned loans to the relatives of the board members following the prescribed norms and not lent any money to any industrialist, almost betraying bovine contentment.
However, about Nabard saying the appraisal of loans is weak, Rawat said the bank is carrying out proper appraisals of loans and sanctioning loans on the actual assets cost of borrower which he/she mortgages to take loans from the bank.
Nabarad had also alerted the RBI in September 2017 to dissolve the USCB board and replace it with a new management committee consisting of banking professionals, news reports reveal.
Readers would recall that the bank has recently been in the news for committing irregularities in the tenders for video conferencing facility.
