RBI decides to have deputy governor for cooperative banks

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has accorded an in-principle nod for the proposal to have a fourth deputy governor exclusively to supervise the working of the cooperative banking sector.

Announcing this, Union Minister of State for Finance Anandrao Adsul said the post will be filled in a couple of months.

The minister also announced a Rs 11,485-crore credit plan for Maharashtra for 2003-04 at a meeting of the state-level bankers' committee here but said public sector banks will have to shoulder a part of the financial burden of the district cooperative banks in this respect, now that at least 13 of these have been declared weak banks.

District central cooperative banks have till date remained a major purveyor of short-term credit to agriculture in the state contributing to around 55 per cent of the credit plan. But Adsul said many of them are now not in a position to make their contributions towards the plan and this would adversely affect the overall size of the plan if the public sector banks do not step in to avert the situation.