U’khand Govt introduces scheme for co-op bank loan defaulters

In order to reduce the burden of Non Performing Assets (NPA, the Uttarakhand government has decided to launch a ‘one time settlement’ scheme for thousands of defaulters of cooperative bank loans. The 100 day scheme started on July 1 this year.

In this respect, a decision was taken by the minister of state (independent charge) Dhan Singh Rawat while presiding over a meeting of cooperative department. In last 25 years, the cooperative banks of the state have NPAs of Rs 391.50 crore. These banks undertook a special recovery campaign last month in which Rs 21 Crores were recovered from loan defaulters.

The settlement scheme has started on July 1 and would end on October 7. The minister clarified that the defaulters up to Rs 50 lakh would be able to avail benefit of the scheme. A total of 18465 accounts in different cooperative banks are categorised as NPA.

The minister stated that the NPA accounts have been divided into three categories. In the first category, the pending interest amount would be waived off completely from the account holders who have deposited the capital amount and the account holder has died.

In the second category under the ‘one time settlement scheme’ the account holders who have deposited interest equivalent to the capital, only remaining capital amount would be charged.

In the third category, the department has kept the dubious account holders. These are those defaulters who have taken loan from other banks also and have kept papers of property mortgaged in different banks. Under the scheme only 30% interest along with capital would be charged from such account holders.

The minister said that the ‘one time settlement’ scheme would be beneficial for all stake holders. He expressed confidence that the scheme would be a huge success.