CM call on credit societies to help farmers' cause

Pune, Apr 22 (UNI) Stating that the credit societies have a crucial role to play, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh today called upon them to increase their presence in the rural areas to help the farmers so that they could stop committing suicides.

Inaugurating the first ever national convention of credit societies here, Mr Deshmukh said, ''It is a matter of shame that in a progressive state like Maharashtra, farmers have been committing suicides. This can be addressed by a pro-active role by the credit societies by providing loans to the farmers. The State government will extend all assistance.'' Mr Deshmukh said that for the time being, the NPA factor in the credit societies would be kept aside.

The Chief Minister said that he was in favour of decentralising the dual controls in running the financial credit institutions for which the Centre has taken positive steps.

Minister in PMO, Prithviraj Chauhan, informed that a meeting of chief ministers will soon be convened to discuss lifting of dual controls in credit societies.

A bill for the purpose will be introduced in the next session of the Parliament.

There are a total of 4.80 million credit societies in the country.

Of this, Maharashtra has 28,000 with Rs 32,000 crore deposit.

Credit Societies' Federation President Lalit Gandhi said they would be able to address the problem of farmer suicides and announced Rs 100 crore as first instalment in this regard.

''We know the farmers personally and their problems, so we are in a better position to help them'', he said.

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