Buoyed up by the performance of Bihar State Co-op Bank, state Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed his govt’s desire to park a part of the state fund with the co-operative banks spread across districts.
The Chief Minister said this on the occasion of handing over Rs one crore towards the Chief Minister Relief Fund recently by Bihar State Cooperative Bank. The cheque was handed over by the bank Chairman Ramesh Chaubey to the CM in the presence of many others.
The news was shared by Bihar State Cooperative Minister Subhash Singh through his twitter wall. He wrote, “Today Bihar State Cooperative Bank handed over a cheque of Rs 1 cr to the Hon’ble Chief Minister towards the Chief Minister Relief Fund”.
Later talking to Indian Cooperative, Ramesh Chaubey thanked the CM for his encouraging words. “Leaders do not get to know the real picture and when the CM heard that co-op banks have beaten commercial banks hands down by distributing 88% of DBT funds, he was pleasantly surprised.
Chaubey, who shared many other details of co-op banks’ performance with the CM, stressed that commercial banks are not confined to a particular state and many of them often transfer money to their offices in other states unlike co-op banks which have to do business only within states.
The CM was also impressed when he heard that we have cloaked a profit of Rs 62 crore in the financial year. Loan, advances, CRR etc, on all the parameters the State Co-op Bank has done remarkably well, claimed Chaubey, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the apex body of co-op banks NAFSCOB.
Hearing all this, the Chief Minister seemed inclined to the idea of routing the state funds meant for different govt schemes through co-op banks, said Chaubey who sounded confident that it would happen sooner than later.
It bears recall that Bihar still has a three-tier system with about 22 DCCBs spread across districts. Most of the district co-op banks are doing quite well, though they have been lagging behind in disbursing agricultural loans to the farmers, as recently stated by Union Finance Minister Nirmla Sitaraman in the Parliament.
Bihar’s co-op banks have disbursed only 1.12% of agricultural loans in the state during 2019-20 which is far below the national average of 15%, said Finance Minister Nirmla Sitaraman in the Parliament.
Explaining it the finance minister said the average size of landholding in Bihar is 0.39 hectares as against 1.08 hectares of the national average. The 91% of operational land holdings in the state belongs to marginal farmers.