Members of Tamil Nadu Agricultural Cooperative Bank Employees Association, as part of a State-wide agitation staged a demonstration in front of the Joint Registrar office of Co-operative Societies on the Collectorate campus in Dindigul on Tuesday raising various demands.
The protesters said that cooperative societies in the State were asked by the Cooperation Department to buy heavy vehicles such as trucks and tractors and earn an income out of renting them.
Pointing to this, A. Ravichandran, district secretary of the association, said, “This order to buy vehicles at a cost of around ₹10 lakh to ₹20 lakh would lead the societies to loss.”
“We were instructed by the officials to rent the vehicles for agricultural purposes and Public Distribution System (PDS) shops, but the reality is most of the farmers would use their own vehicle and PDS shops would make use of vehicles procured through tenders,” he added.
Mr. Ravichandran said that instead of buying such vehicles, the fund could be used to start grocery shops which would at least be profitable.
“The 57 vehicles that were bought in Dindigul district are just parked at the societies, leaving them to rust under rain and sun,” he added.
As part of the protest, around 500 staffs from the 198 societies in the district handed over the keys of the vehicles to the Joint-Registrar of the Cooperative society and went on an indefinite leave.
