PANAJI
In a bid to clean up the fiscal mess in the hundreds of cooperative credit societies which have been a huge source of small retail loans to thousands of Goans, the State government has tweaked the rules to enable these rural mini-banks to recover bad debts.
The Registrar of Cooperative Societies has modified the rules by which Credit Cooperative Societies will now be able to devise one-time settlement (OTS) schemes to also make otherwise ineligible, defaulting borrowers to apply and get waivers of interest and penal interest on their bad loans.
Sources in the RCS office said earlier loan accounts of only those borrowers who defaulted on monthly repayment for six consecutive months were classified as non-performing assets (NPA) and permitted to apply for OTS schemes.
"Now with the changes in rules, those who default repayment for up to 24 months (two years) will be eligible," the official said.
The changes in the rules will help hundreds of such credit cooperative societies to recover the principal amount from the defaulting borrowers instead of otherwise getting nothing, the official said.
