Mumbai headquartered National Cooperative Agriculture & Rural Development Banks’ Federation organized its board meeting at the Nafed Board room in New Delhi recently, in which demand for inclusion of Kheti Banks’ representatives on the NABARD Board was raised in unison.
The meeting presided over by the NAFCARD Chairman Dollarbhai Kotecha, concluded with discussions about strengthening the long-term credit cooperative structure.
The main deliberations were held on having representation from the rural cooperative credit sector on the Nabard board. The board passed a resolution to submit a request to the government for considering nominating representatives from Rural Cooperative Long term Credit Structure on the board of Nabard.
Talking to the Indian Cooperative correspondent one of the board members said, “No representatives of rural cooperative credit structure were included in the board of Nabard after its establishment in 1982 except for a brief period of about a year in the late 80s”.
“The section 6(1) (b) of the Nabard act provide for including among others persons having experience in cooperative banking in the appointment of three directors under this clause and the provision in 6 (1) (f)(iii) of the act provides for nominating to the board not exceeding four directors having specialized knowledge in various relevant fields including cooperatives”, the board members informed.
He further added, “in this context, it is submitted that in view of the dominant role of Nabard in their working, the experience and knowledge in rural cooperative credit structure may be considered as the relevant criteria for appointing/nominating persons having experience in cooperative banking in cooperative on the board of Nabard”.
Besides, the board also reviewed the performance of Agriculture and Rural Development Banks in the meeting. NAFCARD is also preparing the business development plan for the five years for ARDBs and it will be finalized soon.
It is learned that NAFCARD also appointed a committee for making the model bye laws for the state and primary level land development banks. The committee has to submit its report in three months.
The meeting was attended by the Nafcard Vice-Chairman NAFSCOB Chairman K Ravinder Rao, Kribhco Chairman Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, Delhi State Cooperative Bank Chairman Bijendra Singh, Punjab SCARDB Suresh Kumar Goyal, West Bengal SCARDB Moinul Hassan and others.
There are 16 State Cooperative Agriculture & Rural Development Banks (SCARDBs) of which 13 claim a network of 794 branches. Most of these branches are in Uttar Pradesh. These banks have a membership base of more than 88 lakh.
The total loans and borrowings outstanding of these banks as of 31.03.2021 were Rs 20,926 crores and Rs 12,893 crores respectively. As of 31st March 2021, the total deposits of these SCARDBs stood at Rs 2,238 crores.