Co-op banks merger in UP: Finance Ministry seeks update from Nabard

The Ministry of finance has written a letter to Nabard Chief General Manager on the issue of merger of the district central cooperative banks of Uttar Pradesh with State Cooperative Bank. The copy of the letter is with Indian Cooperative.

The letter signed by the Under Secretary, Pramod Kumar Singh, Ministry of Finance has asked the Chief General Manager of Nabard to respond to the queries raised by the Cooperative Bank Employees Union on the merger issue.

In their letter, the employees’ union has demanded to expedite the merger process of the DCCBs with State Cooperative Bank. There are 1,335 branches of DCCBs and 29 branches of UP State Cooperative Bank in State. The merger will strengthen the 7,439 PACCs in the state, the letter reads.

M V S Rami Reddy (IAS) Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Co-operation, said that the report of the committee for merger is being considered at the government level.

Several union office bearers in districts had written letters to UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in this connection.

Readers would recall that earlier, the RSS leaning body’s Sahakar Bharati had opposed the idea of merging district Central Cooperative Banks of Uttar Pradesh with the State Cooperative Bank. The leaders argued that the idea of merging the DCCBs will stifle the rural credit system. It will be against the three-tier structure as well.

There are 50 DCCBs in the state out of which 16 have a weak financial background. Even the district cooperative banks falling in the constituencies of Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are in the red.

Earlier, the state government formed an Academic Technical Committee on merger under the Chairmanship of IIM Prof Vikas Srivastava and the committee has submitted its report.