While the world may beat its chest the urban cooperative bank sector has reacted coolly to RBI Governor’s exit. Raghuram G Rajan was mostly focused with nation’s economy; he had little time for the cooperative bank sector; for us his presence or absence hardly mattered, felt several cooperators.
NCUI President Chandra Pal Singh Yadav listed a series of grievances cooperative sector has against the Reserve Bank of India and he recalled Rajan was never useful in solving them. We tried so hard for COBI’s license but to no avail, Yadav said.
Rajan hardly did anything for credit cooperative structure of the country and in fact one of the latest recommendations of RBI’s Gandhi Committee aimed at finishing off the cooperative credit movement in the country, NCUI President added.
Reacting to his exit Sahakar Bharati patron Satish Marathe said “If he had also supported the Co-op Banking Sector, particularly the UCB Sector, we would have ever remained grateful to him.”
Similarly Mukund Abhayankar the former President of NAFCUB was categorical “Rajan’s exit will not affect UCB sector in either way because he was not personally looking into it. But it will certainly affect banking in India in a big way. New orientations to banking structure like Universal banks, Payment banks, Small Finance banks may die at birth itself with no vision and support at the Regulator.”
Abhyankar felt Rajan’s successor cannot be guessed at this stage; but some crony academician buttering politicians and Babus in finance ministry may not give original and independent direction to Indian economy through banking tools.
“Rajan’s exit is a big blow- and at a totally wrong time to India’s banking sector”- was how Abhayankar concluded his reaction.
Political reactions however favoured Rajan with the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party criticising the Modi government over the issue. The former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that he was not surprised by the development. “This government did not deserve Dr Rajan. Nevertheless, India is the loser,” he said.
State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said, “Dr. Rajan is a person of very high caliber, who has built ably on the reputation of our Central Bank and given it a very large measure of credibility.”
Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen said, “It is unfortunate if Rajan’s exit is because some government member is against him. His exit is a huge loss.”