State lobby for cooperatives, Centre tightens control on exchange of notes

Queue before banks to exchange notesThiruvananthapuram: Kerala government continued to lobby for cooperative in the State even as Reserve Bank of India tightened controls.

Minister for Cooperation A. C. Moideen wrote to the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and held discussion with Reserve Bank authorities here on Monday. He has also asked members of Parliament from the State to raise the issue in the House.  Chief Minister Pinarai Vijayan and Finance Minister T. M. Thomas Isaac too had taken up the issue with Mr. Jaitley.

However, the RBI has withdrawn permission granted to district cooperative to accept demonetised notes as deposits. The cooperatives are planning a hartal in protest against this on Wednesday.

The RBI has said that there were reports that some cooperative banks were not strictly adhering to the instructions issued in connection with the withdrawal of legal tender status of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes. So, it had advised the urban cooperative banks and the State cooperative banks through NABARD of the need to strictly adhere to instructions.

Meanwhile, at least one new generation bank here is not following RBI guidelines. The MG Road branch of ICICI Bank is insisting that only account holders of the bank could exchange notes there (up to Rs. 4500).

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