Hindu reports the cooperative sector in Karnataka has not taken kindly to the RBI providing the option of turning commercial banks into urban cooperative banks with a business volume of Rs. 20,000 crore.
Addressing a press conference recently Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj H.K. Patil, former chairman of the Karnataka State Co-operative Urban Banks Federation said urban cooperative banks would lose their co-operative character if turned into commercial banks.
Interestingly, only about 25 urban cooperatives in the country presently qualify to become commercial banks considering the business volume and none from Karnataka are in this group.
Karnataka has 266 urban co-operative banks.