RBI signs Mou with Punjab government on UCBs

Mumbai, Mar 7 (UNI) The Government of Punjab and the Reserve Bank of India today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with regards to Urban Cooperative Banks in that State.

Consequent upon this, a State level Task Force on Urban Co-operative Banks (TAFCUB) has been constituted for Punjab. Dr J Sadakkdulla, Regional Director for Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Union Territory of Chandigarh, Reserve Bank of India, is the Chairman of the TAFCUB and Viswajeet Khanna, Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Government of Punjab, is its Co-Chairman.

The other members of the TAFCUB includes a representative, each from State and National Federation of Urban Cooperative Banks, a nominee of State Government of Punjab and a representative of Urban Banks Department, Reserve Bank of India, Central Office, Mumbai.

The first meeting of the TAFCUB will be held shortly, RBI said in a release here.

Similar MoUs have earlier been signed with the Governments of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal, Chattisgarh, Goa, Maharashtra, Haryana, National Capital Territory of Delhi, West Bengal, Assam and Tripura.

As part of its developmental role, the Reserve Bank will also be assessing the training and computerisation needs of the Urban Co-operative Banks in the State of Punjab with the objective of upgrading their human resources skills and technological infrastructure so that they improve their operational efficiency and quality of management information systems.

In the Mid-Term Review of Annual Policy announced in October 2004, the Reserve Bank had announced that a Vision Document for Urban Co-operative Banks would be prepared. Accordingly, the Reserve Bank placed in public domain a draft Vision Document in March 2005.

As the Urban Co-operative Banks were subject to dual control by the Reserve Bank and the State Governments, the Vision Document envisaged the signing of MoU between State Governments and the Reserve Bank of India to put in place an arrangement through which there is a convergence on the approach and remedial actions required to be taken for facilitating the development of the sector.

The Vision Document also proposed the constitution of a State level Task Force for Urban Co-operative Banks with representatives of State Government, State/National Federation of Urban Cooperative Banks and the Reserve Bank of India as its members, for the purpose of identifying the potentially viable urban co-operative banks and drawing up a time-bound action plan for their revival by setting specific monitorable milestones.

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