Uttarakhand Registrar of Cooperative Societies Bal Mayank Mishra has released an order to the General Manager of Uttarakhand based Uttarkashi and Udhamsingh Nagar District Cooperative Banks to recover the amount from the board of directors who went for the study tour at Goa in December last year without taking permission from the state registrar of cooperative societies.
The letter was released last week.
Confirming the news Mishra said to Indian Cooperative, “Yes, we have released an order to recover the amount from BoD who went to Goa for a study tour. Though they had asked for permission we had refused them the permission”.
“The Dehradun DCCB asked for permission and we had given them the permission. However, we refused Uttarkashi and Udhamsingh Nagar DCCBs the permission on the ground that they too were going to the same place Goa for a study trip. We have asked GMs to recover the amount”, he said to this correspondent on the phone.
It is being reported that on an average the costs for the trip was about Rs 10 lakh each bank and the tour was organized for a week.
Meanwhile, sharing the reaction on this development Chairman of Uttarkashi District Cooperative Bank Vikram Singh Rawat said, “It is true to say that the Registrar of Cooperative Societies had not given its permission but we had passed a resolution for going to Goa for a study tour in the Board meeting as well as in the Annual General Meeting where members supported the decision unanimously. We had not violated any prescribed norms and not misused the bank’s money”, he underlined.
“Our blueprint for the trip was prepared by the Uttarakhand’s Pradeshik Cooperative Union (PCU) which is a government body and we had reimbursed the amount to them from the bank. We had not directly hired any travel agency. Ten BoD and Surendra Prabhakar GM of Uttarkashi DCCB had gone to Goa and the overall expense of the trip was around Rs 10 lakh”, he informed.
He further said, we went there for a study tour and visited several successful cooperatives and will replicate their working style in our state. If RCS will pressurize us then we will knock at the door of the High Court, Rawat warned.
Indian Cooperative tried hard to contact Udham Singh Nagar DCCB Chairman Narendra Singh Manas but he was not available for comments.
Several representatives of these banks wondered if the government has no equity in these banks. Why is there a need to take permission from RCS or any other government authorities?
