The Cooperative Election Authority (CEA) under the Union Ministry of Cooperation has approved the election of the Board of Directors of Maharashtra-based Dombivli Nagari Sahakari Bank (DNS Bank).
The CEA has accorded approval for the election of 11 directors, eight from the General category, two from the Women category and one from the SC/ST category. The Authority has directed the District Collector-cum-Returning Officer, Thane, to formally declare the election results.
The approval comes after the CEA last month questioned the rejection of Monica Vikas Kulkarni’s nomination from the Women category. The Authority had sought an explanation from the Returning Officer, stating that Section 41(6) of the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act could not be invoked at the nomination stage. It had also asked the Returning Officer to review the grounds for rejection and revisit the recommendations submitted in Form 19M.
Following the review, the CEA approved the Returning Officer’s recommendations without any changes. Of the 11 elected directors, only three were members of the previous Board, while the remaining eight are new entrants.
The newly elected directors from the General category are Ganesh Dhargalkar, Sandeep Gharat, Gajanan Godbole, Abhijit Marathe, Narendra Mhaskar, Prasad Patki, Satish Patwardhan and Manoj Utturkar. The two women directors are Sudha Iyer and Madhura Thakkar, while Yogesh Vasant Chaudhari has been elected from the SC/ST category.
Ganesh Dhargalkar, who headed the previous Board as Chairman, has been re-elected and is widely expected to continue in the top post.
He is also a member of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)-constituted Committee on Model Bye-laws for Urban Cooperative Banks (UCBs), which was set up to recommend a uniform governance framework for the sector.
