Sahakar Bharati leader Satish Marathe, its President Ramesh Vaidya, its Karnataka’s leader State General Secretary Krishna Reddy and others met the Karnataka Cooperative Minister S T Somashekar and discussed the matter related to the beleaguered PMC and Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank.
“The delegation raised a host of issues with the ministers and urged him to resolve them sooner than later. They also urged the minister to meet Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and asked him to expedite the process of PMC bank and Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank so as to protect the interest of depositors”, said Reddy to this correspondent on the phone.
One of the insiders said Sahakar Bharati is using their RSS and BJP connections to protect the interests of depositors of the scam-ridden Karnataka based Shree Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank. The RSS affiliated organization held a series of meetings with the ministers as well as the representatives of the depositors’ association, MLA, MLC and others.
Later Marathe posted details of the meeting through his Facebook wall. ” With fraud affected PMC Bank resolution, now not far away – looking at media reports – Sahakar Bharati has now stepped up efforts to work to protect the interests of Depositors of Banglore based Shree Guru Raghavendra Sahakari Bank Ltd. Statutory Audit would commence as soon as Accounts for March 2020 are finalised”.
“The delay in finalizing the annual accounts as fraud was being perpetrated for the last several years. Once the correct financial position is known – expected by June 2021 – steps will be initiated to raise Capital for the beleaguered Bank. Hon Someshwarji, CoOp Minister has assured all possible support. Hope our efforts, with active participation & support of all Stakeholders, will bear fruit”, he further wrote.
Reddy further said the meeting was held at the Minister office and lasted one hour. The issues related to credit societies and urban cooperative banks were also raised. Earlier, the Sahakar Bharati team met the Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank depositor’s association and discussed the matter.
Though the Reserve Bank of India keeps on extending the direction to the bank, depositors are forced to move from pillar to post to get their money back. Last year in December, Administrator, R Ashokan appointed by the apex bank to look into financial irregularities of the Bengaluru based Shri Guru Raghvendra cooperative bank had said “only God can save the depositors.
Nearly 40,000 depositors are affected and most of them are senior citizens. Meanwhile hundreds of depositors staged a protest.