Cooperatives: FM wants states to emulate AP

Hyderabad, Nov 3 (UNI) Appreciating Andhra Pradesh for becoming the first state to sign a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) with the Centre for revamping the Cooperative Banks, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram today urged all states to emulate Andhra Pradesh as long overdue revamping the cooperative sector was a must to reach out credit to all farmers.

''Unless we made the cooperative sector healthy it will not be possible to provide credit to over 10 to 12 crore farmers in the country'', he said inaugurating the ''Bancon-06'', Indian Banking conclave hosted by the public sector Andhra Bank.

''It is disappointing to note that though six or seven states have expressed eagerness to sign MOU only Andhra Pradesh has signed the MOU, even many months after the Centre approved the Vaidyanathan Committee report, he said, adding ''all states were not showing a certain degree of alacrity to the business of restructuring the cooperative sector''.

''We are losing valuable time,'' he said, asserting that revamping of the sector was the only way to reach out to the financially-excluded farmers.

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