Ahmedabad: Three more cooperative banks in Gujarat have become sick, adding to the woes of small depositors.

The state government has directed the registrar of cooperatives to appoint administrators in General Cooperative, Charottar Cooperative and Laxmi Cooperative banks, superseding the elected bodies in a bid to salvage the sinking banks.

The government has also asked the registrar to freeze the assets of the chairmen and other office-bearers of these banks till an enquiry into their functioning is completed. The government also proposes to promulgate an ordinance seeking to restrict the powers of the elected office-bearers in extending unauthorised loans to their friends and relatives that would empower the state authorities to take punitive action against the guilty office-bearers.

General Cooperative bank chairman Hasmukh Shah, who is believed to have extended loans of Rs 79 crore to a coterie of 10 groups in which he and other directors of the bank have personal interests, has resigned.

The failure of some of the groups to repay the loans in time created the crisis in the bank, which had extended advances of Rs 130 crore as against the total deposit of just Rs 115 crore with the bank. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which admitted that the bank is not maintaining the credit-deposit ratio since November, has suspended General Cooperative and the Anand-based Charottar Cooperative banks from the clearing-house.

Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank extended a loan of Rs 5 crore to General Cooperative to pay up to Rs 5,000 to each of the withdrawal-seekers, but with the state apex cooperative organisation, the Gujarat State Cooperative Bank Federation, refusing to clear the promised Rs 5 crore loan to the bank, it was forced to down the shutters.

An RBI spokesman said the small depositors in General Cooperative Bank did not run the risk of losing their money as refund up to Rs 1 lakh would be guaranteed by the Central governments Depositors Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation, to which the bank has been paying the required premium regularly.

Out of the total 358 cooperative banks in the state, the government has identified at least 48 units as weak banks.