Attempt to destroy cooperatives in State: Minister A C Moideen

Thiruvananthapuram: A day after BJP in Kerala alleged that huge amount of black money was deposited in state cooperatives, Kerala Minister for Cooperation A C Moideen Friday alleged that the objective behind levelling such charges "is to destroy" the cooperative banking sector.

Inaugurating a regional social welfare cooperative at Pathanamthitta, Moideen said, "the deliberate attempt to destroy the cooperative banking sector has to be defeated."

"The objective of the false propaganda is to shatter the credibility of cooperatives and also to enable the new generation banks to exploit the common man," Moideen said.

"The propaganda that there was huge black money deposits in cooperative banks is to help the private banking sector and to destroy the cooperative banking sector," he said.

The common man in the state is dependent on the sector for their day-to-day needs and people should be vigilant against the attempt to destroy it, he added.

BJP State General secretary K Surendran had alleged that huge amount of 'black money' was deposited in cooperative banks and wanted steps by the Centre to verify them.

Surendran had alleged that "serious type of tax evasion is taking place" in such institutions.

In a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, he had alleged that an estimated Rs 30,000 crore of black money had been deposited in the cooperative banks in the state and "not a single paise" was paid as income tax on them.

He also urged Jaitley not to accept the demand of the Kerala government seeking exemption to the cooperative banks from income tax.

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had requested that permission be granted to the district cooperative banks in the state to exchange the demonetised notes.

This was required as the present situation was causing problems to carry out day-to-day business of the state government, he said. The CPI-M-led LDF government had earlier said demonetisation of the notes would create "chaos" in cooperative sector besides causing difficulty to the common man.

Making a statement in the assembly on the Centre's decision, State Finance Minister T M Thomas Issac had said the disorder it would create in co-operative sector, which was not under banking regulation, would be huge as there was no directive on how to handle cash in this sector.