Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to apprise him of the impasse in the cooperative sector triggered by the Centre’s demonetisation move.
This is in the backdrop of the Prime Minister’s refusal to meet the all-party delegation from Kerala to convey the state’s concerns in the wake of the RBI ban on exchange of recently devalued notes at the cooperative banks.
Pinarayi states -in the letter- that he was writing on behalf of 19 million cooperators and all the legislators in the state. Stressing that "the cooperatives in Kerala are built on the strong vision and tenets of Mahatma on decentralization and villager’s cooperation," the CM goes on to delineate the "undesirable impacts and long-term damage" to the rural financial environment in the state.
“There is an impending danger of completely destroying the agricultural and rural credit operational environment that will surely derail the NABARD operations in the state….The Grama Panchayats and rural households are in doldrums, affecting the poor women neighbouring groups….leading to complete paralysis of the rural local self governance structure.”
The letter also makes a mention of the stalling of the monthly welfare pension of 44 lakh widows, old aged, and cancer patients among others, who receive financial support through these institutions.
Pinarayi goes on to seek Modi’s support and patronage to resolve the current crisis, while assuring him that Kerala’s cooperative sector does operate in a transparent manner according to laid down RBI guidelines, and that these banks would furnish any requested information to the Income Tax department.
A decision that the Chief Minister wants implemented on an immediate basis is extending the "same currency withdrawal rights" of Rs 24,000 per week to account-holders in the primary and district cooperative banks too.
He concludes his letter by directing the state Finance Minister Dr Thomas Isaac to brief Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley with a detailed status report on the cooperative sector.