Baghat Urban Coop Bank to get new chairman, vice-chairman on Friday

Tribune News Service

Solan, November 22

Baghat Urban Co-operative Bank Limited will get its new chairman and vice-chairman on Friday, following a notification of a meeting of the newly elected board of directors (BoD) today.

The elections for the seven directors of board were held on November 14 where the BJP-supported candidates had won four seats while two had been bagged by the Congress. One seat has been won by a candidate of the Nagar Nigam Sangharsh Samiti.

Six of the seven BoD members are first-timers and only Arun Sharma, a Congress-supported member, is a former chairman of the bank.

With the BJP having a clear majority, there was little likelihood of the party facing a problem in electing its chairman and vice-chairman. The state government can also notify two more members in the BoD and since they have voting rights, all eyes are now on the announcement of the nominated members.

Sunder Singh Thakur and Sanjeev Kumar are the front-runners for the two posts though it remains to be seen if a lone woman, Kalpana Thakur, would be adjusted in one of the two key posts. This was moreso as she hails from the home turf of the lone minister from the district.

The bank has 11 branches, 100 mini-depositors and a staff of 131. The new BoD will have an arduous task at hand in view of the lack of experience of the majority of the directors and stringent posture adopted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in recent months.

The RBI has imposed a penalty of Rs 15 lakh on the bank for the violation of rules pertaining to classification of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs). Its financial position as on March 31, 2019, as per its assessment report, exposed non-adherence to RBI rules and violation of the guidelines. This includes non-ID of NPAs, incorrect classifications of resources or assets, insufficient arrangements made because of the incorrect classification of assets and non-adherence to exposure standards for housing real estate and commercial real estate.

Its NPA had climbed to a whopping 20 per cent and the credit to deposit (CD) ratio had exceeded the stipulated limit, following which the RBI had put general loaning on hold since April 2021.

Four BJP-backed candidates elected directors

• The elections for the seven directors of the board were held on November 14.
• The BJP-supported candidates won four seats while the Congress bagged two seats.
• One candidate of Nagar Nigam Sangharsh Samiti was elected.