Prior to the presentation of the union budget on 1st February, Sahakar Bharati leaders comprising of Satish Marathe, Ramesh Vaidya, Uday Joshi, Sanjay Pachpor and Krishna Reddy met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at her residence at 15, Safdarjung Road, New Delhi on Monday.
The leaders placed several burning issues related to the cooperative sector before the finance Minister. “The meeting that lasted over 45 minutes was fruitful”, Marathe, said to Indian cooperative soon after the meeting with the FM.
“She heard us out very patiently despite her tight schedule and assured us to resolve the issues sooner than later”, said Marathe.
The Sahakar Bharati team discussed five major points connected with the cooperative sector with the minister including giving full powers to RBI to regulate UCBs by amending the Banking Regulation Act. Presently there, is dual control on co-ops where State Cooperative Registrar and RBI monitor their activities.
“We urged the FM to reduce Income Tax for Coops as has been reduced for entities registered under the Companies Act. Private banks have to just pay 22 percent corporate tax while co-op banks and UCBs having a turnover of 15-20 crore have to pay 33%”, Marathe said.
Besides, we requested to raise Deposit Insurance Cover to Rs 5 lakhs & give full relief to Depositors of the fraud afflicted PMC Bank & Pen Urban CoOp Bank by amending the DICGC Act”, Marathe said while sharing the details of the meeting.
The other issues related to Direct CBDT to issue detailed guidelines (keeping in mind the SC Judgment/Vaidyanathan Com Recommendations) relating to issuances of IT notice to PACCs, Credit Co-ops.
Empowering Co-ops like Social Organizations to raise long term funds by issuance of Bonds by directing SEBI to provide a Listing Platform was also discussed during the meeting.
Sahakar Bharati Patron Jyotindra Mehta was also supposed to attend the meeting but could not do so due some last minute engagement.
It bears recall that recently Senior cooperators Dileepbhai Sanghani and NAFCUB President Jyotindrabhai Mehta participated in a high-voltage meeting organized by the BJP Economic Cell in Delhi where both the leaders raised several issues pertaining to co-ops.