Kerala - Kochi   

Cooperative Bank urged to provide interest-free loans to farmers

NEW VISION: Chief Minister V.S Achuthanandan arriving for a function organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in Kochi on Saturday.

KOCHI: Food security is facing a challenge owing to the severe rise in prices of essential commodities caused by the wrong policies of the Central government, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has said.

Talking after inaugurating the cooperative complex set up by the Ernakulam District Co-operative Bank here on Saturday, he said that cooperative sector in the State has a tradition of making effective intervention to control price rise.

He urged the Ernakulam Cooperative Bank to consider the possibility of providing interest-free loans to farmers. Such loans should be made available to the maximum number of farmers, he said.

“Depending on neighbouring States alone to check the rise in price of essential commodities, including that of rice, would prove futile,” he said.

Steps should be taken to protect paddy fields from being filled and to encourage the paddy farmers to persist in the field, Mr. Achuthanandan opined.

He urged the Ernakulam District Cooperative bank to make a more extensive and effective intervention to check price rise.

The Chief Minister said that the imperialistic and neo-liberal economic policies being followed globally would neglect and destroy the public and the cooperative sectors.

Stating that globalisation was the only slogan of the Central government, Mr. Achuthanandan said that it was conspiring to destroy the popular character of the cooperative sector. The recent recommendations made by the Central Planning Commission pointed towards such a move. The cooperative sector must be strengthened and made competitive to face the challenges of globalisation. Cooperative banks should be strengthened to protect the interests of common man, including farmers and workers.

“Effective and conscious efforts should be made to protect and reinforce the cooperative sector,” he said.

The cooperative banks in the State were equipped to even compete with big banks, the Chief Minister said. The deposit of more than Rs. 30,000 crore at the disposal of the cooperative banks in the State was proof of the trust enjoyed by them. Steps should be taken to safeguard that trust, he said.

He said that the training centre to be operated in the cooperative complex was aimed at equipping the employees of the cooperative banks and members of self-help groups to face the challenges of the modern times.

Presiding over the function, Minister for Cooperation G. Sudhakaran said that the cooperative sector had registered unprecedented growth during the 22-month Left Democratic Front rule. During the period, deposits registered a growth of more than Rs. 18,000 crore.

He said that the month-long drive to recover bad debts was a huge success and recovered more than Rs. 1,000 crore.

He said that starting professional education institutions in the cooperative sector would help to put an end to the fleecing by private self-financing colleges.

Fisheries Minister S. Sarma inaugurated the T. K. Ramakrishnan convention centre. K. Babu MLA inaugurated the computer science club on the occasion. Babu Paul MLA opened the bioreactor. V.J. Paulose, District Congress Committee President, and Mundakkayam Sadasivan, district secretary of the Communist Party of India, delivered the cooperative message.

M. M. Monayi MLA, president of Ernakulam District Cooperative bank welcomed the gathering and C. Banu, general manager delivered a vote of thanks.

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