Fractured verdict: Sah Bharati welcomes new EC, Anaskar not happy

The urban cooperative banking sector is divided on the composition of an Expert Committee, announced by the RBI on Monday for the growth of urban co-op banks. While the RSS affiliated body Sahakar Bharati has welcomed the move, Maharashtra Federation Chief Vidyadhar Anaskar registered his protest raising several points.

Welcoming the committee, Sahakar Bharati National Organizing Secretary Uday Joshi said, “Sahakar Bharati Welcomes the constitution of expert committee for UCBs. The report should pave the way for the orderly growth of the UCB sector”.

Sahakar Bharati also dismissed the charge that the Committee has been partial in the sense that only one representation (Jyotindra Mehta) from the UCB sector has been included.

The main opposition to the composition of EC came from Vidyadhar Anaskar who lamented that two retired IAS officers have been made its members. “Do they know the ground realities of urban co-op banks or do they have any banking experience”, shot Anaskar after reading from the list of members.

Anaskar was not enthused with the idea and recounted that the two committees formed earlier, ended up harming the interest of the UCB sector. He named the R Gandhi committee and the Malegam Committee formed by RBI in this context.

“It was these two committees which mooted the idea of the Board of Management which is slowly forcing the sector towards privatization. These committees are nothing but a ruse of the RBI to weaken the sector”, Anaskar was non-sparing.

Earlier, in a letter written to Nirmala Sitharaman, Anaskar suggested, “In order to maintain total transparency and build confidence and trust of the sector towards formation, purpose and working of the Committee, kindly constitute such expert Committee under the chairmanship of appropriate authority from Banking Division/Finance Department of Central Government (and not under the chairmanship of executive from the Reserve Bank), and having representation of major State Federations i.e. Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and NAFCUB to discuss and deal with various major policy issues pertaining to UCBs.

“We also suggest that the meetings of such a Committee shall be held at a place convenient to all members and outside the offices of the Reserve Bank”, Anaskar further suggested.

It bears recall that on Monday RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had constituted an Expert Committee on UCBs.

The committee comprises Chairman, six members and a convenor. Besides Vishwanathan, Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, the former Chairman of NABARD, Mukund M Chitale Chartered Accountant, retired IAS officers NC Muniyappa and RN Joshi IAS (Retired), Prof MS Sriram, IIM Bangalore, Jyotindra M. Mehta- President of NAFCUB (National Federation of Urban Cooperative Banks and Credit Societies) are the members and Neeraj Nigam- Chief General Manager-in-Charge of RBI’s Department of Regulation is the convenor.