Sahakar Bharati, the pan-India association of cooperators and cooperatives, has demanded that a section in the department of financial services be set up to address matters pertaining to cooperative financial institutions.
In a letter to Finance Minister Nirmalaji Sitharaman, senior office bearers of Sahakar Bharati Dr Uday Joshi, national general secretary, and DN Thakur, national president, submitted that an out-of-the-box solution with DICGC extending adequate liquidity support coupled with a five-year lock-in period for PMC Bank depositors will have to be worked out.
Sahakar Bharati officials have sought the FM to intervene to improve the scheme announced by the RBI for the merger of the fraud-affected PMC Bank with the new Unity Small Finance Bank. Sahakar Bharati officials believe that the scheme is both one-sided and completely unfair to depositors, who would face huge losses due to lock-in periods with no or ridiculously low interest rates. They have asked the FM to look into their ideas to help PMC Bank depositors who have suffered for no fault of their own.