In a major victory for those who wanted to keep NCDC exclusively for the co-operative sector, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has conveyed that there is no such move allowing NCDC to give loans to private parties.
The Minister’s Executive Assistant Avinash Arya phoned General Secretary of Sahakar Bharati Uday Joshi Wednesday afternoon to tell him that the Ministry does not entertain any idea of allowing the private sector to take loan from the NCDC. He was calling on behalf of the Minister, said Joshi.
Cooperators across the board were agitated ever since the matter came into public debate that the only lender to the cooperative sector, which is National Cooperative Development Corporation is also going to cater to the needs of the private sector. A few officials of the Ministry are reported to have mooted the idea.
In about a five-minute talk on the phone, Mr Arya told Uday Joshi that the Minister wants cooperators to know that the Ministry is not entertaining any such idea, leading to a huge sigh of relief among co-operators. “Arya said the matter may have been debated at an administrative level of which the Minister is not aware. Tomar Saheb assures you all in no uncertain words that the matter would not be taken up at his level”, said Joshi quoting Arya while talking to Indian Cooperative.
Among others, Sahakar Bharati was one of the first to have written a letter to the Minister on the issue. “Though the letter was signed by our President Ramesh Vaidya, Tomar chose to call me as it may have been easily available to him in the ministerial files”, explained Joshi soft peddling the issue.
Last week the Governing Council of NCUI had also passed a resolution opposing any move to dilute the focus of NCDC. NCUI President Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav said he had also planned to go to meet the Minister with a delegation of co-operators.
Sahakar Bharati, in its letter, had reminded the minister that NCDC was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1963 as an Apex Financial and Developmental Institution exclusively for the Country’s Cooperative Sector.
The letter also talked of the fact that there are a host of institutions ready to offer loans to the private sector but none for the co-op sector and therefore the NCDC be spared to focus exclusively on the cooperative sector.
Note–We regret to inform our readers that due to some misunderstanding it was reported in the news item that Shri Narendra Singh Tomar himself called Shri Uday Joshi. Later we came to know that it was not Shri Tomar but his Executive Assistant Shri Avinash Arya who had called Sahakar Bharati leader conveying the message from the Minister. The inadvertence is regretted.