Thiruvananthapuram: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development has said that the Kerala Government should take steps to strengthen the co-operative system and bring district co-operative banks under the Core Banking Solution.
DCBs could enter the national payment system only by complying with the conditions, including securing licence from RBI, laid down by National Payment Corporation of India Ltd and RBI, Nabard Chief General Manager, Kerala Region, R. Amalorpavanathan, told reporters here on Friday.
“One of the conditions is that the member of such payment system should be a bank, for which licence from RBI is mandatory,” he said.
Kerala is the only State that has not agreed to implement the Vaidyanathan Committee recommendations to strengthen the co-operatives and make these institutions as full-fledged banks.
Co-operative banks in the State should become part of the national payment system, “which is good for the borrowers and depositors’’, he said.
“It is the duty of the State Government, the major stakeholder of the co-operative system, to make the co-operatives a strong and robust institution thus making them eligible to be a part of the payment system.”
He urged Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy to take the initiative in resolving the issues connected with co-operative banks in the State.
On Nabard’s plan for Kerala in 2013-14, Amalorpavanathan said the target was to deploy an overall amount of Rs 7,005.64 crore, which was 12.3 per cent above the level of disbursement of Rs 6,238.34 crore in the year-ago period.
Of this, Rs 2,400 crore and Rs 3,725 crore would be towards investment credit in agriculture and crop loans respectively, he added.
Nabard has been set up as an apex development bank with a mandate for facilitating the credit flow for promotion and development of agriculture, small-scale industries, cottage and village industries, handicrafts and other rural crafts.
PTI