Reacting to a news report titled “Bad News from Abhyudaya Co-op Bank; Accumulated Loss Rises to Rs 371 Cr,” which appeared on the Indian Cooperative news portal on Friday, the Chief General Manager, B.R.G. Upadhyay, of the Abhyudaya Cooperative Bank has sent a rejoinder, claiming that the Bank is indeed doing well under the new committee headed by Satyaprakash Pathak.
As a platform that believes in total transparency for the cooperative sector, we are obliged to publish the response verbatim. However, we would like to clarify that before our news item was published, our Principal Correspondent Rohit Gupta made multiple attempts to contact the CEO of the bank, Premnath Salian, who somehow was not available.
We, however, concede that the “net loss” is actually “accumulated loss,” which was revealed by Satyaprakash Pathak to Indian Cooperative over the phone. We promptly corrected the same in the headline. Pathak also said that the new team has made significant efforts to stabilize the bank’s deteriorating financial position during the 2023-24 fiscal year and is continuing its hard work to steer the bank onto a growth path.
The two reports—ours and that of the Bank—are now before the readers to judge for themselves: Editor
Verbatim Excerpts:
The CGM writes giving a title “Abhyudaya Co-op Bank in Stabilisation Mode within 4 months of Supersession of the Board by RBI”
He further writes “Mumbai-based Abhyudaya Cooperative Bank, was under Supervisory Action Framework (SAF) since 2013-14 to 2018-19 and again from 2020-21 and the Board was superseded by RBI on 24th November, 2023. After a sharp drop in deposit figures after the supersession, the figures have stabilised since January, 2024. The latest figures for the financial year also reveal improvement in Operating Profit from Rs 13.98 Cr to Rs 39.84 Cr and decrease in Net Loss from Rs 236.40 Cr to Rs 224.15 Cr. The Operating Profit would have been Rs 61.14 Cr and Net Loss would have been Rs.9.72 Cr if statutory provisions for earlier years were made in the respective years which have now been made in the reported financial year.”
“A committee appointed by the RBI, chaired by Satyaprakash Pathak, former Chief General Manager of the State Bank of India, managed to stabilize performance for the 2023-24 fiscal year. The committee was able to bring about a noticeable improvement in the bank’s financial health”, he concludes.