The story of COBI not getting license is indeed sad. There were several historical moments in the past when it looked imminent that it would get one. Leaders after leaders felt the need for an apex body which represents all the co-op banks from the Primary to the state level.
COBI was envisaged to represent urban cooperative as well as land development banks at the national level. It also aimed at becoming the bank for all the top national cooperative federations such as NCUI, IFFCO or Kribhco.
It is on record that Manmohan Singh said in Parliament in 1993 that we are going to set up COBI under multi state cooperative act. COBI intended to act as apex body both for co-op banks, UCBs and LDBs of the country, said G H Amin, Chairman of COBI to this correspondent.
COBI has its AGM, its board meetings but it is not able to do financial activities as it does not have a license. Tracing the history of COBI, B D Sharma who retired as Chief Executive of NCUI talked of several past committees which advocated setting up of a national body for cooperative banks in the country.
After Mirdha Committee, Khusro Committee which undertook study of Agriculture Credit Review in 1989 came up with a suggestion to have a Cobi like structure to fill up the systematic gap as cooperatives have to depend on commercial banks for their financial activities, Sharma added.
The idea was accepted in principle and NCUI was also entrusted with the job of finalizing its draft. It had to coordinate with RBI and Ministry of Finance. There took place a series of meetings with RBI to finalize the by- laws of Cobi, said Sharma.
“We do not have a fund crunch with state co-op banks and other national cooperative federations buying COBI’S
share capital. . Tell me if today these co-op banks or national federations such as NCUI, IFFCO or Kribhco want to park their money where would they do that. They have to depend on commercial banks as COBI has no license”, lamented Amin.
“Not only that if the cooperative sector has to launch a big project and a consortium is to be made only an organization like COBI can take the lead”, added Sharma.
