NAFSCOB President Dileepbhai Sanghani met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Parliament Office and urged him to direct the apex bank RBI to revise its decision of not allowing District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) the exchange facilities for demonetized currencies.
“Narendrabhai Modi listened to me carefully and instructed his officers to look into the matter”, Sanghani told this correspondent soon after his meeting with PM Modi.
“The officers also listened to me at PMO and assured that the issue will be soon discussed by the finance minister. I am confident that things will be normal shortly, Sanghani claims. Readers would recall that Sanghani is the Chairman of the apex national body of co-operative banks known as NAFSCOB.
Sanghani went to meet PM soon after attending the inauguration of the 12th Regional Assembly of ICA –AP and the 9th Asia Pacific cooperative forum last week in Ashoka Hotel, Delhi.
Explaining the issue Sanghani said, the notification released by RBI is not in favor of farmers who deposit their savings in District Cooperative Banks. I presented all the facts before the PM and requested him to ask officials to find a solution, he added.
Readers would recall that earlier Sanghani had met Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar and requested him to withdraw the restrictions imposed by RBI on DCCBs. His efforts to meet Jaitley, however could not fructify, though he is believed to have met BJP President Amit Shah in Ahmadabad during latter’s personal visit to his home state.
Frankly I would not mind hazarding a risk of saying that cooperative bank’s board themselves are to be blamed for RBI’s stern approach towards them to protect the demonatization gains getting diluted. The State like Maharashtra having had a ban since 1986 on Ministers of State or Union occupying a management board membership under Section 73A(6) of Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act 1961 was lifted under Section 29(c) by deleting this provision when 97th Constitutional Amendment was enacted to make co-operatives free of interference of politicians. This was Prithviraj Chavan’s regime.