On Wednesday Ram Nath Kovid allocated the Ministry of Cooperation to Amit Shah in addition to the Home Ministry, leading to jubilation among co-operators of the country in general and Gujarat in particular.
Sahakar Bharati Patron and Nafcub President Jyotindra Mehta greeted Amit Shah by writing on his FB wall, saying he is proud of the Country’s first co-operative minister.
Later talking to Indian Cooperative Mehta said that Amit Shah is a hard-boiled co-operator who has risen from the ranks by dint of his hard labour. He was very active in DCCBs elections and in fact, the credit of turning round the fortunes of Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank goes to him, stated Mehta.
But most of all, Mehta has fond memories of Amit Shah working day and night to revive the beleaguered Madhavpura Mercantile Bank. “I can say from the roof top that Madhavpur and through it the rest of 360 UCBs of Gujarat were saved from annihilation due to the efforts of Amit Shah, underlined Mehta who partnered Shah in his efforts.
Due to the strike in the Gujarat State Co-operative Bank, more than 200 of the 360 UCBs of the state started to invest and deposit money in Mahadevapura which had branches in the four mega trading cities of Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat and Mumbai.
Due to the facility of mutual draft arrangement where one can draw money from any of the above cities, Madhavpura became a bank of choice for smaller UCBs. More than 150-200 UCBs had deposited money in Madhavpura and when the latter began to collapse, the customers ran to respective UCBs to withdraw money. It was a grim situation, added Mehta who himself was on the board of Gujarat Urban Co-op Banking Federation, which is heads now.
Recalling the chronology of events, Mehta said that he and Shah left for a day to Mumbai to meet Satish Marathe to work out a Revival Plan for Madhavpura. We appointed CA who gave us a plan. The plan was to collect Rs 300 crore from small UCBs and seek approval of RBI to use the same for the revival of the Madhavpura Bank.
I and Amitbhai toured the length and breadth of Gujarat convincing UCBs to contribute funds for the survival of the co-operative banking system. RBI greenlighted the proposal when Rs 300 crore was collected by us and that is how the co-op movement in Gujarat could survive, said Mehta going down memory lane.
Amit Shah was just an MLA then but his capacity to grasp a crisis and work out its resolution was astounding even then, recalled Mehta who heads the apex body of UCBs in the country, NAFCUB.