Page 20 - Banking Finance April 2019

CO-OPERATIVE BANK NEWS

Farm loan waiver benefits cooperative banks in Uttarakhand State Co-op

Rajasthan Bank to set up co-op
Rajasthan government's farm loan waiver scheme has given relief to the farm- training institute
ers reeling under debt and it has also helped coop-
Uttarakhand State Cooperative Bank
erative societies improve the non-performing assets
will give training to those farmers
(NPAs) through recovery of bad loans.
who are associated with coopera-
"Cooperative banks and PACS (primary agricultural tives across the state. A training in-
credit societies) have not only recovered the regu- stitute will be set up in Haldwani for
lar non overdue and overdue cooperative loans, but
the purpose. The decision was taken
also the farm loan principal amount, overdue interest and penalties on the co- during the bank's 13th Annual Gen-
operative loans," Inder Singh, the managing director (MD) of Rajasthan State eral Meeting held recently.
Cooperative Banks Limited told.
Addressing the AGM, Chairman Dan
Singh said the former BJP government in Rajasthan had waived farm loans of Singh Rawat said, "Now farmers
worth Rs 2,000 crore last year against the announced waiver of Rs 8,000 crore. need not go elsewhere for training.
However, the current government is waiving farm loans worth Rs 10,000 crore, We will set up our own training insti-
along with the remaining Rs 6,000 crore crop loan waiver announced by the tute. We have also increased the divi-
BJP?government.
dend to be paid to state cooperative
He said the loan waiver scheme will benefit 25 lakh farmers in Rajasthan. "Farm banks of the state. From now on,
loan waiver would offset the financial losses (including bad loans and NPA) of they will get dividend ranging from
worth Rs 3,500 crore of the apex bank, cooperative banks and PACS," Singh said. 7 percent to 7.50 percent", Rawat
said.
Rs 70 crore fraud in Fatehabad cooperative bank Prabhu felicitates Mehta
Following a complaint filed by resident of a local village a loan scam worth 70
crore was unearthed in Fatehabad's Cooperative Soci- on his election as Nafcub
ety Bank. Acting on complaint police booked the bank President
personnel including then general manager of the bank
and many others in a case of cheating, fraud, forgery, Minister of Commerce and Industry
embezzlement at Fatehabad City police station. and Civil
Aviation
Besides the then GM Narsi Ram, other bank official Suresh
who have been directely booked in the case include loan officer Mahender Singh Prabhu
Bhadoo, branch manager Amarpal and Nihal Singh data operator Sheshkarna, recently
touts Sushil Kakad, Parmod Kumar, Gagandeep Grover Ratia, Kiran Rani Batra, felici-
Sumer Singh, M S Sandhu organizing manure centre, Gurnam Singh. Case has tated the
been registered on the complaint of Ramesh Punia, current GM of the bank. In veteran cooperator from Gujarat
his complaint to police, Punia said that the accused had managed to get the Jyotindra Mehta on being elected as
loans worth Rs 74.92 crore between January 2016 to March 2018. the President of apex body of Urban
Of the total disbursal 90% of the loan were found to have been procured on the Cooperative Banks NAFCUB at
Rajkot, Gujarat.
basis of fake documents which resulted into loss to bank. According to informa-
tion, Narsi Ram and Mahender Singh were said to be the main officials and rest It bears recall that in the recently
were the touts. It is alleged that instead of routing the loan proposals through concluded election Mehta got re-
the appraisal committee of the banks, Narsi Ram allowed the sanction and dis- elected as the President of Nafcub
bursal of loans on the recommendation of Mahender Singh Bhadoo. During in- representing Gujarat Urban Coop-
vestigations by bank it was found that there were 150 such loans which were erative Banks Federation. He repre-
not event sent to the Head office for approval while the loans worth Rs 15 crore sents the constituency of Urban Co-
bore the fake numbers uploaded by official;s. operative Banks Federation.

20 | 2019 | APRIL | BANKING FINANCE