As the Supreme Court is about to take a final call on whether to give a last chance to old currencies , Buldana Urban CEO Sukesh Zamwar recollects the horrible experience of the demonetization days.
Maharashtra based credit co-operative Buldana Urban recently opened its 407th branch in the Sangli district of the state. Happy about his expanding business, Sukesh Zamwar, MD of the credit co-op however, finds it difficult to forget the nightmarish experiences the co-op sector had to pass through in the wake of demonetization.
“Because of demonetization our credit society had not performed well in the last financial year i.e. 2016-17 and suffered a decline of about 10 percent in its business growth”, said Zamwar.
He said the decline was mainly due to the non-availability of cash at the time of demonetization. “The demonetization as a step to tackle black money was good but the government regarded transactions done through cooperatives with doubt and suspicion. This tarnished the image of the cooperative movement”, he said with a tinge of sadness.
“We wrote letters to the authorities including Prime Minister Narendra Modi detailing our problems but we did not receive any reply”, he said.
Earlier, Buldana Urban had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help arrest the plummeting confidence of people in the fifty thousand credit co-operatives active the country.
”We are not asking for any support from the government and all we want is to be appreciated for the efforts we are putting in to improve the living conditions of the poor in society. Co-ops are not bad but there are some incorrigible elements within the cooperative sector who keep indulging in irregularities. Overall, cooperatives are doing a good job as a part of the country’s economy”, Zamwar opined.
Meanwhile, Buldana Urban is active adopting technology, installing CBS and offering cashless transaction facility with the help of PoS machines and Mobile phones, informed Zamwar.
Buldana Urban also offers water ATMs, Vedic schools, hotels, bridges, spinning mills and even guest houses at religious places such as Shirdi and Tirupati.
Established in 1986, it is having deposits of about 5,000 crore and offering loans amounting to Rs 3,800 crore. It boasts about 8 lakh shareholders earning a profit of Rs 50 crore.