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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | NABARD delaying talks on panel report: Sudhakaran

NABARD delaying talks on panel report: Sudhakaran

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published Published on Dec 27, 2010   modified Modified on Dec 27, 2010

Says the bank has also stopped refinancing farm loans

Says no NABARD official has visited his office in a year

Criticises Milma for deposits in a private bank

Cooperation Minister G. Sudhakaran said here on Monday that the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) had not been taking the initiative to hold discussions on implementing the Vaidyanathan committee report on cooperative sector reforms and had stopped refinancing farm loans in the sector.

The Minister also criticised Milma as the milk cooperative's Alappuzha Poonkunnam unit had been depositing its monthly revenue of Rs.3 crore in a private bank instead of any cooperative bank.

Pranab's directive

At a press conference, Mr. Sudhakaran said NABARD had not bothered to hold the discussions despite a directive by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to do so.

“The Union Finance Minister's approach was very good, but nothing has come out of it. During the past one year, no official from NABARD had visited my office. How can they, without a clear cut stand on this issue,” he said.

Farm crisis

The bank's attitude towards the State's farm sector would only aggravate the crisis it had been in. But the Cooperation Department went ahead with its farm loan programme, sustaining huge losses.

The Minister said Milma's action, which had been going on for the past six months, was in gross violation of the audit norms.

“The Cooperation Department conducts the audits in Milma and cannot be a silent spectator to this violation,” he said.

He had brought the issue to the notice of Food and Civil Supplies Minister C. Divakaran, who holds charge of Dairy Development.

Mr. Sudhakaran said his department's deposit mobilisation drive from November 1 to December 15 had yielded Rs.3,556.23 crore as against the target of Rs.2,500 crore. With this, the total deposits in the cooperative sector went up to Rs.65,666.94 crore from Rs. 62,112.71 crore. He hoped that deposits would peak at Rs.70,000 crore by March.

Loan recovery scheme

He said the State government had formulated a scheme for recovery of loan arrears as part of its attempt to reduce the non-performing assets of the cooperatives without resorting to court action as far as possible.

For loans up to Rs.5 lakh, penal interest and notice and other charges would be waived. Some of the loans had been taken at higher interest rates. These would be settled at the existing or the current rates whichever was lower, along with a 10 per cent establishment charge on the interest amount.

In the case of loans between Rs.5 lakh and Rs.10 lakh, an establishment charge of 15 per cent would be recovered, along with the capital and the interest.

For loans above Rs.10 lakh, a committee comprising the Minister and the Registrar of Cooperatives would carry out an examination.

These loans would be eligible for concessions offered under the scheme. The director boards of the agriculture and the rural development banks and the housing cooperatives would formulate separate schemes to settle bad loans.

He said a major achievement of his department was the revaluation of gold loans of Rs.8,780 crore.

Action would be taken against officials who had accepted fake ornaments as security for gold loans.

The department had also detected irregularities in charging higher interest rates for deposits and loans.

The higher amounts would be returned to the cooperative society members who had taken the loans.

Criminal action

He said the Cooperative Department would take criminal action against the officials, the members and the presiding officers of 80 cooperatives which had defaulted on repayments.

He said 37 credit societies, which had 51,995 deposits, could not return deposits of Rs.26.85 crore, while in the case of 43 non-credit societies, the arrear was Rs.17.84 crore spread over 7,400 deposits.

The report seeking criminal action against erring officials would be submitted to the Director-General of Police before January, he said.


The Hindu, 28 December, 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/28/stories/2010122858520100.htm


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