Maharashtra Minister of Public Health and Family Welfare Prakash Abitkar, on Wednesday shared key decisions taken to strengthen the financial stability and regulatory framework of cooperative credit societies in the state.
The decisions were taken at a high-level meeting held at the Ministry under the chairmanship of Cooperation Minister Babasaheb Patil, focusing on improving financial security, ease of operations, and regulatory empowerment of credit institutions.
Among the major decisions, the state government has initiated steps to provide insurance cover for deposits in cooperative credit societies. The office of the Cooperation Commissioner has already issued a public notice inviting Expressions of Interest (EOI) from leading government and private insurance companies for the same.
In another significant move, a proposal has been submitted to amend the Cooperative Act to allow borrowers availing gold loans from urban cooperative credit societies to be treated as “nominal members,” enabling smoother loan transactions. The proposal is currently under consideration at the government level.
The government is also considering providing greater flexibility to credit societies in deploying their Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) funds. A proposal has been sent to allow investments in banks beyond District Central Cooperative Banks, which will be placed before the Cabinet Committee after obtaining legal opinion.
Further, to improve credit access for small and needy entrepreneurs, the state is planning to allow ‘A’ grade cooperative credit societies to implement loan schemes of various development corporations, including Annasaheb Patil Economic Development Corporation, CMEGP, PMEGP, and others. At present, these schemes are routed only through banks.
The meeting also discussed strengthening the Maharashtra State Non-Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies Regulatory Board (Pune). Key suggestions included appointing the Cooperation Minister as its Chairperson and reducing the contribution rate from 0.010% to 0.005%, along with broader measures to empower the regulatory body.
The state government reiterated its commitment to ensuring financial safety and institutional strengthening of both urban and rural cooperative credit societies, noting that most of their long-pending demands are under active consideration.
Senior officials, including Principal Secretary (Cooperation) Pravin Darade, Cooperation Commissioner and Registrar Deepak Taware, Joint Secretary Santosh Patil, and Deputy Secretary Manjusha Salvi, were present at the meeting.
