Landlords, govt staff owe Rs 377 cr to two state cooperative banks

Tribune News Service

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, August 30

Big landlords and state government employees are among the biggest defaulters of two state cooperative banks. They have taken Rs 377 crore from these institutions.

While farmers owning over 10 acres of land owe Rs 225 crore to the Punjab State Cooperative Bank and Punjab State Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank, those who own over 20 acres owe Rs 27 crore. The state government employees owe the two banks Rs 125 crore, which have become the non-performing assets.

Have turned into bad loans

• Farmers owning over 10 acres owe Rs 225 crore to the Punjab State Co-op Bank and Punjab State Co-op Agricultural Development Bank
• Those who own over 20 acres owe Rs 27 crore and the state government employees owe Rs 125 crore

All this has come to light at a meeting of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Committee on Cooperation held today. Sources say that the committee has reportedly asked the government to ensure the speedy recovery of these loans as the principal amount to be recovered by the two banks is now a whopping Rs 1,600 crore. These banks are also to repay loan of Rs 800 crore borrowed from other financial institutions.

Sources say that a committee, headed by Sardulgarh MLA Gurpreet Singh Banawali, found that while government employees had defaulted on repaying their loans worth Rs 45 crore to the Punjab State Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank, they had also not repaid their loans of Rs 80 crore to the Punjab State Cooperative Bank.

According to figures available with the State-Level Bankers Committee, the NPA under agriculture advances for the Punjab State Cooperative Bank stand at Rs 392.97 crore as on March 31, 2023.

Committee members were reportedly upset over the recoveries of the bank not being initiated against either the state government employees or the landlords, who have the loan repaying capacity. The decision of this committee is to suggest ways and means to strengthen the cooperative sector and bring these two banks out of red by ensuring that the loans given by the banks are recovered.

Interestingly, the committee members reportedly deliberated how in the past some commission agents were appointed as directors of these banks. These directors then swapped their own personal loans with the bank loans.

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