The discussions among co-operators associated with credit cooperatives have been started in regard to making a separate federation for credit co-ops at the national level.
The idea got momentum during the Sahakar Bharati’s conference at ICAR, New Delhi and a committee has been formed for implementing the idea at the ground.
Cooperators argue that there is National Federation for Urban Cooperative Banks and Credit Societies (NAFCUB) but they mainly focus on the urban cooperative banking sector. Therefore, it is the need of the hour for creating a dedicated national federation at the national level to address issues related to credit cooperatives.
Talking to the Indian Cooperative correspondent, Maharashtra State Cooperative Credit Societies Federation Chairman Kaka Koyate said, “We are deliberating on a separate national federation for credit cooperatives and in this connection one of the first meetings has also been organized.”
“We have constituted a committee and the work has been started. We are hoping that things will take shape in a couple of months. Though, at present there is no dedicated federation at the national level for credit co-ops”, he underlined.
Readers would recall that earlier the demand for having a separate national federation for district central cooperative banks was also raised. The cooperators associated with DCCBs argue that National Federation of State Cooperative Banks (Nafscob) is not having focus on the issues of DCCBs and to bring it center stage there is a need for a separate federation.
As a result, Nafscob passed the resolution in its last meeting for amending its bye-laws for granting the membership to DCCBs and sending it to the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies for approval.
There are around 80,000 credit cooperatives in the country out of which 16,000 are in Maharashtra and the majority are in Gujarat, Karnataka and other states.