The situation on the salary front appeared to ease across the State on Saturday with salary earners and pensioners not turning up in huge numbers at treasuries as has been the case over the past two days.
The State received Rs.66.19 crore from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) against Rs.85.74 crore sought by it for making treasury payments. Kasaragod, Wayanad and Idukki, which were badly hit by shortage of imprest money during the past days, received the full amount they had sought. Among the districts, treasuries in Thiruvananthapuram received the highest sum of Rs.10.17 crore against Rs.10.42 crore sought from the RBI.
Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha, which had received relatively higher sums earlier, had to settle for lower allocations on Saturday. Malappuram continued to suffer, receiving only Rs.3.72 crore against Rs. 9.52 crore sought for the treasuries in the district. Across the State, 29,139 pensioners and 5,033 salary earners made withdrawals from treasury savings bank accounts on Saturday, Finance Department sources said.
At a meeting convened to discuss the issues faced by the cooperative sector post-demonetisation here on Saturday, Cooperation Minister Kadakampally Surendran urged the urban cooperative banks to permit primary cooperative societies to open accounts with them. This, he said, would help make more funds available to the the primary credit cooperatives. Only the State Cooperative Bank and the urban cooperative banks had the freedom to operate post-demonetisation. They should come forward to help the primary cooperative credit societies, Mr. Surendran said.
He said the State government would launch a month-long campaign beginning December 10 to instil confidence in people about the cooperative movement. December 18 will be observed as ‘Cooperatives Protection Day.. Cooperators from across the State will visit the 67 lakh or so households on the day and collect small and big sums as deposits. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the campaign at a convention to be held in Kochi on December 11, he said.
