THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sahakar Bharti, a pro-BJP organisation in the cooperative sector at the national level, will approach the Centre against the state government’s plans to set up the Kerala Bank by merging the District Cooperative Banks and the State Cooperative Bank. Inaugurating a discussion on Kerala Bank organised under the aegis of the National Yuva Cooperative, Sahakar Bharti former national president Satheesh Maratte said the merger of District Banks will prove disastrous to the farmers.
“Those who moved the court against the Prakash Bakshi report are now closing down District Cooperative Banks. The forced merger goes against the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution,” he said.
Maratte said instead of going in for the merger, the state government ought to have strengthened the Cooperative Banks. He said the state government’s move will be opposed at any cost. Maratte said the Sahakar Bharti will move the RBI and Nabard against the move to set up the Kerala Bank by merging district Banks.
National Yuva Cooperative Society director V Muralidharan, who presided over the meeting, said the unilateral decision to merge the District Cooperative Banks was indicative of the direction the government was taking the state’s cooperative sector. He claimed the young generation is not drawn to the Cooperative Banks since there are undesirable elements in the sector.
Instead of closing down the District Banks, the government should have taken steps to resolve the issues plaguing the sector. He also said the government ‘s decision to go ahead with the tendering process even before receiving the Centre’s nod for the Kerala Bank was done with the intention of passing the buck to the Union Government in the future.
BJP general secretary K Surendran said those who had raised a hue and cry during demonetisation, accusing the Centre of destroying the cooperative sector, were not aware of the seriousness of the situation when the state government chose to go ahead with the merger of the district banks.