Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

PACS decry non-payment of salaries

By Our Staff Reporter

Cuddapah Nov. 15. The persons-incharge and paid secretaries of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies and directors of Handloom Weavers Societies boycotted the District Cooperative Central Bank general body meeting here on Saturday and staged protest in front of the DCCB decrying non-payment of salaries to the secretaries despite the A.P. High Court's direction.

The PACS persons-incharge -- K. Suryanarayana Reddy, Chenchu Reddy, Sesha Reddy, Jayarami Reddy and N. Konda Reddy -- alleged that DCCB officials and employees were drawing salaries regularly despite incurring losses of Rs. 48 crores, but the PACS secretaries were denied salaries on the pretext that they were making losses. They questioned if Rule 116(C), stipulating that salaries must not exceed 2 per cent of the societies' working capital or 30 per cent of its gross profit, was not applicable to DCCB.

The DCCB chairman, K. Katamaiah, and its general manager, C. Mohan Reddy, failed to recover the Government dues of Rs. 69.89 crores, which would bring the bank, which was placed under Section 11, out of the red, they alleged. They lamented that no fresh loans were granted by the DCCB to the societies for three years. The interest and share capital were not being passed on to the PACS on the loans cleared and the repaid loan amounts were not being credited under the stipulated head of accounts, they alleged.

They demanded implementation of the A.P. High Court's interim orders to clear the secretaries' salary arrears by ensuring that they did not exceed two per cent of working capital. They said applying the rule that salaries must be within 30 per cent of the societies' profit was redundant as almost all the societies were incurring losses. The paid secretaries threatened to stage dharna and undertake relay hunger strike in front of the DCCB and PACS from Monday.

Meanwhile, the APCO director, B. Narayanaswamy, said the weavers society representatives have boycotted the meeting and alleged that handloom societies were being charged steep interest rates ranging between 15 per cent and 20 per cent although the APCOB and Commissioner of Handlooms issued orders to collect 11 to 12 per cent reasonable interest.

He decried that DCCB officials were assuring to extend credit from the date of issue of orders, although the weavers' societies were due to get seed money and project package amounts from 1999 onwards. The issue was not included in the agenda and hence the representatives of 150 weavers societies boycotted the general body meeting, he said.

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