PANAJI
Depositors of Visionaries Urban Cooperative Society, who have been fighting to recover their deposits for the last two years, staged a protest outside Patto Sahakar Sankul in Panaji and later confronted Chief Minister Pramod Sawant when he had gone to attend a function.
The protestors sought his attention on the issue but Sawant said legal procedures would take its course and declined to give any concrete assurances.
The discontented depositors have warned that if the government does not solve the issue within 15 days, they will be forced to take the law into their hands.
The shareholders of Visionary Cooperative Society criticised Cooperation Minister Govind Gaude and government agencies like Registrar of Cooperative Societies and Economic Offence Cell for failing to resolve their plight.
"The Economic Offense Cell filed an FIR in this regard in 2020 based on an audit report of 2016, however, no investigation has been completed till date," said Maria Wanda Gomes, administrator of the society.
“The society has not maintained proper board records since 2017 and so the auditor Anup Borkar has reported that records from 2017 till now cannot be audited,” informed Gomes.
"The Registrar of Cooperative Societies had sent a letter to the chairperson not to accept any deposit from depositors, but she went on collecting deposits,” said Gomes.
Gomes informed that of almost 3,000 depositors around Rs 55 crore are at risk in the cooperative credit society.
It may be recalled that the society, which began in 1991, has closed its branches like those in Loutolim, Colva, Majorda and Curtorim.
After the fraud was alleged and a 2016 primary audit confirmed the same, the Registrar of Cooperative Societies had put the society under certain directions and had appointed an administrator. The depositors have since been holding protests in various locations asking for justice.
