Maharashtra: Shah calls for introspection in cooperative sector, assures Centre's support

He also pointed out to the drop in the number of cooperative sugar mills in Maharashtra and the rise in the number of private ones

Union Home Minister Amit Shah with Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis during his visit to Hedgewar Smruti Mandir, in Nagpur on Saturday. | Photo Credit: ANI

Union Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said the cooperative sector in the country needed to introspect in order to improve systems and this exercise would receive the full support of the Centre.

Speaking at the 'Sahkar Maha Conclave on Banking and Sugar Industry' organised by media group Sakal, Mr. Shah also pointed out to the drop in the number of cooperative sugar mills in Maharashtra and the rise in the number of private ones.

"As far as credit societies, urban banks and district cooperative banks are concerned, a lot needs to be done. We had a series of meetings with the Reserve Bank of India and I can say on the issues that were brought to me here on this platform, we will ensure all these institutions do not face any injustice," he said.

Mr. Shah, who is the country's first Union Cooperation Minister besides being the Minister for Home Affairs, said he was aware of the problems with these institutions and also understood why they existed.

"I will talk about Maharashtra since I am in Maharashtra. There were 202 cooperative sugar mills in Maharashtra. Today, the number is down to 101. There were 22 private sugar mills in the State, but this has now gone up to 93. They ate up our (cooperative) space. The cooperative sector needs to introspect on why this is happening," Mr. Shah said.

Breach of trust

Citing issues of trust in the backdrop of irregularities in the district cooperative banks in Kolhapur, Solapur, and Nagpur, for which administrators had to be appointed, Mr. Shah said this was not a good thing.

He assured the Centre's cooperation on all issues that would improve the sector, but said those running units must do so properly in order to get such help.

Mr. Shah said the RBI had accepted all norms related to urban cooperative banks and reiterated the call for introspection after citing the example of Pune's Rupee Cooperative Bank as one of the "many urban cooperative banks that got doomed".

He lauded Maharashtra for having quality cooperative institutions like the Vasantdada Sugar Institute.

Reiterating that those not running cooperative sectors properly would be voted out by members, Mr. Shah said the Union government would ensure no institution faced any kind of injustice in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's formula of sahakar se samriddhi (prosperity through cooperatives).

Mr. Shah said there was a need to establish more than two lakh primary agricultural credit societies nationwide, to achieve the target of providing agri-finance worth ₹10 lakh crore through cooperatives.

"Once these two lakh PACS are formed, hurdles in the path of cooperative banks are removed and district and State cooperative banks start functioning properly, then no one can stop the growth of the cooperative sector," Mr. Shah asserted.