Bharat Bank a cooperative bank based in Mumbai has begun providing its customers with visa international card services. The latter are intended to bring the bank on a par with the most modern banks in the city.

Bharat Bank has been around for more than three decades helping small and middle size businesses with credit.

At least for the time being, the international card being offered by the bank can be used gratis.

IFFCO conducted its Annual General Meeting in the NCUI auditorium in N Delhi on Tuesday with thousands of delegates gracing the occasion. Surrounded by almost all the 21 directors of the fertilizer cooperative board, Chairman N P Patel enumerated the achievements of the fertilizer giant and stressed the welfare of the farmers of the country.

Managing Director Shri U S Awasthi thanked the delegates who had come from various parts of the country and said that farmers’ interest is the focal point of IFFCO’s planning.

But more than the Chairman and MD it was the delegates paying glowing tributes to the leadership. They said that under the leadership of Dr Awasthi IFFCO is growing by leaps and bounds and has become synonymous with trust and dependability.

One of the delegates said that people buy Iffco fertilizer without hesitating for a moment as the brand name of Iffco evokes tremendous confidence.

Many delegates expressed huge thanks to Dr Awasthi for giving 20 per cent dividend year after year unfailingly. They offered him full support and wished the good work being done by him to continue.

Drawing from different states including Bihar, Punjab, Maharashtra and south India the speeches of delegates were presenting the true colour of multi-lingual and multi-cultural India.

Readers may recall that IFFCO again notched up a profit of more than a thousand crore in the financial year 2011-12 despite a depressing local and global scenario. It has also increased its turn over from Rs 22000 crore to nearly Rs 26000 crore.

Delegates were given 24 carat imported gold weighing 5 gram.

Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank is being charged with hiding some material and important information from its stakeholders.

Buzz is some crucial pages are missing from the auditor’s report and this gives rise to widespread speculation about the bank   systematically indulging in irregularities.

There are reports of the bank refusing to share information with its stakeholders.

The bank is accused of not abiding by the principle of transparency and getting its reputation further besmirched by its reckless behaviour.

It is reliably learnt that the apex bank has allowed the cooperative banks to work out their own norms for conversion of fixed deposits.  The move is aimed at enabling the banks to improve their asset liability management.

Presently a customer is at liberty to withdraw his fixed deposit anytime he so desires and he does not have to suffer any loss because of his decision. The absence of punishment is being seen as an encouragement of mobilizing of deposits by customers.

Experts say the RBI decision has not come a moment too soon and the cooperative banks will have the freedom needed to be able to perform much better on the asset liability management front now.

The cooperative behemoth IFFCO is having its Annual General Meeting(AGM) on Tuesday in New Delhi. It would be the biggest assembly of farmers ever organized in the country.

IFFCO is having more than 40 thousand cooperative societies as its members across the country and delegates from them have assembled in Delhi. Delegates are spilling out of the NCUI Guest house to IFFCO’s guest house and Sai Dham adjacent to NCUI.

Taking care of their board and lodging is no mean job but we are used to it as AGM takes place every year, said one of the officials of Iffco, assigned with the task.

Talking to Indian Cooperative Dr G N Saxena, Director of Cooperative Relation at IFFCO said that “each farmer requires at least about 25 gram of gold in marrying off his daughter. Our delegates are elected for a period of five years. Our Managing Director Shri U S Awasthi insists that in their five years of association with IFFCO farmers should get five gram of pure gold each year”. It adds up to 25 gram in a period of five years, he concluded.

“Thus we are giving 5 gram of 24 carat gold to each of our delegates”, Dr Saxena said.

The agenda of AGM does not include change in bye laws or anything of that kind. Routine ratification of the past year accounts and proposed expenditure would be passed in the AGM.

Corruption seems to be pervading the cooperative sector in the country’s biggest state Uttar Pradesh. The Cooperative Minister in the state has suspended a number of employees of Pradeshik Cooperative Federation   on corruption charges.

The PCF employees have been found indulging in serious irregularities in the ongoing wheat procurement in the state.

The new dispensation in Lucknow has taken a serious view of it.

The Cooperative Minister has warned of stern action against those cooperative officials and employees   who indulge in corrupt practices.

According to the minister, several scams and frauds have recently come to light and they are an indication of a pervasive corruption and abuse of authority rampant in the cooperative sector.

Fed up with the procurement of cotton to the gills, the MSCCMF is adapting and diversifying. The organization would now be busy vending cotton seeds among farmers.

The cooperative body would mainly sell all kinds of advanced cotton seeds through a wide network of   vending points.

MSCCGMF sources say the new activity would help the organization make an optimal use of its trained manpower.

The federation has hundreds of farm graduates at its disposal and could easily use this manpower for   vending cotton seeds.

Sources say the move is likely to ease tension and chaos associated with the sale of seeds in the state.

Bihar has turned into the field of cooperative wars with government and erstwhile chairmen and directors of cooperative bodies at loggerheads.The state sponsored cooperative conference on 26th May came soon after the conference of 23rd May which was organized by former Biscomaun Chairman Sunil Singh.

“A panicky government did not allow us to use Sri Krishna Memorial Hall even though number of cooperative leaders were running into thousands”, said Sunil Singh while talking to Indian Cooperative.

While Sunil Singh’s programme was attended by many top national cooperative leaders including NCUI’s President Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, the government sponsored programme drew women cooperators and aimed at empowering them.

Sunil Singh accuses Government of masquerading BJP women cell members as cooperators in want of genuine women cooperators in the state. “Cooperative officials were threatened in each district and asked to contact BJP Mahila cell to send volunteers. There are only about 264 women PACs Chairman in the states”, he said.

He also said that male PACs Chairmen numbering into about 8500 were not invited as government were scared of their anger on lack of payment of paddy prices running into Rs 800 crores.

Detractors of Sunil Singh however accuse him of double standards. They accuse him of advocating the case of PACs Chairmen whom he had always fought with. “Since it suits his political expediency he is talking on behalf of PACs Chairmen”, they argue.

He has no courage to contest election and is fighting the Bihar Election Authority set up recently in the court. How can he talk on behalf of those who have been elected through the new system? He is a cooperative leader who fears transparency and has been reduced to mere paper tiger status, they alleged.

Punjab Chief Minister has called for modernization of the cooperative banks in the state through the application of core banking solution and provision of ATM services so they could compete with the commercial banks.

Lamenting a serious shortage of manpower weighing down the department of cooperation in Punjab, Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal has ordered a large scale recruitment drive in the cooperative sector.

Informed sources claim a couple of thousands of people would soon be appointed at various levels in the cooperative dept. and in the cooperative organizations of the state.

A source close to the Punjab  govt. says  Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal is showing a big dollop of  interest in the cooperative sector as he deems it  basic to a rapid  economic growth in Punjab.

Bihar govt officials including a BDO and a clerk were caught red handed taking a bribe for sanctioning lease for the fishery cooperative society in Motihari, said the local police.

Acting on a complaint, the vigilance bureau raided these govt officials.

Rumours here are flying about a much bigger incidence of corruption among the govt officials.