Young and dynamic, visionary yet down to earth – the son of famous Eknath Thakur, Gautam Thakur has been elected Chairman of the largest urban cooperative bank of the country on Saturday in Mumbai. The outgoing Chairman S K Sakhalakar has been elected as the Vice-Chairman.
The junior Thakur is 48 years old and is fired with ideas to reach the level of Rs one lakh crore by the time his term comes to an end. It is almost two years after the demise of his renowned father Eknath Thakur that the junior Thakur has taken his place.
As reported earlier in these columns, all the Directors of the Mumbai headquartered UCB were re-elected unopposed. The results were announced in the AGM by the returning officer Mr H P Gemini.
The three and a half hours long AGM was held in the Acharya B N Vaidya Sabhagriha in Dadar in Mumbai. There were about 956 delegates, Sakhalakar informed Indian Cooperative on phone.
This was second time in a row that elections were not required and Directors were elected unopposed, said Gautam Thakur with a touch of pride to Indian Cooperative.
Soon after the AGM the Board met to elect Chairman and vice-chairman. The outgoing Chairman Sakhalakar proposed the name of Gautam Thakur as the Chairman. It was unanimously accepted. Sakhalalkar was elected Vice-Chairman by the newly-elected Directors.
Gautam’s rise to chairmanship was inevitable as he was spearheading all the bank’s strategic programmes. He is also credited for contributing majorly in making the cooperative conglomerate achieve the target of Rs 50 thousand turn-over.
Talking to Indian Cooperative Thakur said” the Board in its wisdom decided to elect me as the Chairman and I
respect the unanimous decision and feel humbled. I need everybody’s support including that of the media to fulfill the target set by the Board.”
The 48 year old Thakur is the son of late cooperator Eknath Thakur. Like his father, Gautam’s grit and farsightedness are admired even by his critics. Thakur became the darling of the cooperative world after his famed statement made to this news portal “cooperative is in my DNA”.
Earlier, several cooperators doubted Saraswat Bank’s cooperative credentials as it had made a tentative move to convert itself into a private bank. The junior Thakur scotched all rumours and said emphatically Saraswat would remain in the Cooperative fold- a statement music to cooperators’ ears.
