Cooperative money safe, says CM Pinarayi Vijayan

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan assured the Assembly on Tuesday that the money deposited in cooperative banks were safe. “The state will stand guarantee for each and every penny that you have put in these banks,” the Chief Minister said at the special Assembly session convened on Tuesday to discuss the effects of demonetisation on the state’s cooperative sector. The Chief Minister also hinted that the joint agitation would be scaled up if the Centre rejects the state’s demand to ease restrictions on cooperative banks.

“All our demands have fallen on deaf ears till now. The government and the opposition will jointly attempt to meet the Prime Minister once again on November 24 and if this too fails we will have to think of sterner measures,” the Chief Minister said. He suspected a “global conspiracy” to destroy the cooperative movement in the country. Attempts to destroy the cooperative sector began with the advent of globalisation, he said.

“While all committees that studied the sector in the pre-liberalisation era had recommended steps to strengthen the sector, the ones that came after globalisation, from Chowdhary Brahmaprakash to Vaidyanathan committees, had recommended weakening of the sector,” he said. The Raghuram Rajan committee in 2007, wanted to form a local area bank network by combining profit-making societies and had also called for the shutdown of loss-making societies, would have rattled the foundations of the sector.

Then he spoke about the Nachiketh Mor committee that had mooted the formation of regional banks and payments banks for providing insurance, deposit and loans services in small towns and villages. “The attempt was to allow the private sector into the rural areas by weakening cooperative banks. Ambani, Godrej and Sanghvi together were sanctioned 11 payments banks and 10 regional banks. Even the World Bank had expressed interest to open regional banks,” Mr Vijayan said.

He said that cooperative banks were more than just banks. “These are not mere lending institutions. Their activities are spread over a large number of areas. Had it not been for the cooperative banks who else would have helped our Kudumbashree units, the EMS Housing Scheme and Akshaya centres,” he said. The cooperative sector, according to him, was part of the state’s renaissance movement. The first-ever society was formed in 1925, with 14 daily wagers.

This was transformed into the by now legendary Uralungal Labour Construction Society by Vaghbatananda Guru, the founder of Atmavidya Sanghom that fought superstition. The Chief Minister said that the charge that the cooperative sector was flush with black money was just a canard spread to destroy the sector. “There could be problems in one or two institutions. Otherwise these banks keep fool-proof records and are open to any kind of scrutiny,” Mr Vijayan said.