Encourage empowerment of women in cooperatives: Patil

New Delhi, Nov 26 (UNI) President Pratibha Devisingh Patil today urged the urban banking sector to give more representation to women on the board of various urban cooperative banks for the empowerment of women and also to encourage formation of more women cooperative banks for betterment of women in the country.

Inaugurating the 9th All India Conference of Cooperative Urban Banks and Credit Societies organised by NAFCUB, Ms Patil said that the urban cooperative credit movement in India caters to the needs of credit requirement of people with limited means in urban and semi-urban areas and seeks financial inclusion of people who are economically disadvantaged.

This movement is one of the largest movements in the world having more than 20 million members in its fold with 1850 urban banks and 40,000 credit societies, she added.

In order to face competition from the market forces urban banks should consider ways of net working among themselves and aggregate their resources so that they have better economy of scale to face market competition from bigger players, the President said.

She asked the urban banking sector to get professional in their management and modernise their way of doing business vis-a-vis private players and also said that cooperative banks have to work to start mobile banking, diversify their services and reach out to larger clientele.

She said the share of cooperative banking sector in India is about 5 per cent but it is an important segment considering the number of consumers availing its services.

The President warned that the rate of growth of credit by cooperative banking is not keeping pace with the rate of growth of credit by the rest of the banking sector and their share both in the agriculture and urban sector is shrinking fast which will lead to adverse effect on the credit requirement for small and marginal farmers and weaker sections of society.

Ms Sheila Dixit, Chief Minister of NCThi, lauded the contribution made by the urban cooperative banks for small and marginal and weaker sections of society.

She said that the issues of withdrawal of exemption of income tax 80(p) by government has weakened the sector.

Ms Dixit said that this anomaly should be removed for which her government gives all out support to the urban cooperative banking sector.

Mr B Vijay Kumar, Chairman, NAFCUB, said that the client profile of cooperative banks are very much different from the private sector banks but the regulating norms imposed by RBI for the urban cooperative banks and private banks tends to be the same.

Mr Kumar demanded recapitalisation support already for urban cooperative banking sector and confirmation of income tax concession 80 (p).

UNI