MAPUSA
Facing stiff liquidity crunch on account of the government’s demonetisation policy, the credit societies have been grappling with the situation of servicing their clients and now to pay staff salaries.
“Most of our activity has come to a standstill. We cannot disburse loans nor can our customers deposit cash with us. And now, we do not have enough money to pay the salaries of the staff,” said Francis Soares, General Manager of Our Lady of Milagres Urban Co-op Credit Society Ltd, Mapusa.
Bardez Urban Co-op Credit Society, which faces a similar predicament, was trying to find ways of wriggling out of the situation.
“We are getting only Rs 24,000 per week from the apex bank. We have over 5,000 customers. How can we survive in such situation,” asked Dnayneshwar Narvekar, Manager, Bardez Urban Co-op Credit Society.
However, his biggest headache right now was how to handle the staff salaries.
“We have a problem at hand in paying the salaries of our staff. We have no other way but to release the salaries in parts,” he said.
As per the demonetisation policy, cooperative credit societies have been treated like ordinary customers and permitted to withdraw only Rs 24,000 per week cash from the apex bank, Goa State Co-operative Bank and other banks they bank with.
Also, the demonetised currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 cannot be deposited in the societies.
According to Arvind Naik, Manager of Pirna Urban Cooperative Credit Society, cash coming in due to electrical bills payment and pigmy collection has given it some solace.
“I am sure we will manage with the staff salaries but that will come at the cost of denying cash facility to our customers,” Naik averred.
Soares informed that Our Lady of Milagres Urban Co-op Credit Society had written two letters to the Registrar of Cooperative Societies about the problems it faced, but the State body failed to acknowledge the letters.
The chairman of the Goa State Cooperative Union Ltd, Ramchandra Mule appeared helpless in the matter and said the staff will have to bear for some time since it was a “national issue”.
“We have to comply with the rules of the government. Since it’s a national issue, we will have to wait and watch,” Mule said. “We all will have to suffer for some time,” he added.
The Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Meena Naik Goltekar did not respond to calls nor replied to an SMS asking for her comment on the issue.
