Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Thursday hailed the measures taken by the Reserve Bank to increase credit flow through cooperative banks.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday came out with a host of measures for the cooperative sector to enable them to play a bigger role in providing credit to the real estate sector.
Shah said that in a span of less than one year, the government has taken many historic decisions for the cooperative sector, which were needed for a long time
“On behalf of the Ministry of Cooperation and crores of people associated with the cooperative sector, I express my gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the decisions that have given new impetus to the development of this sector,” he added.
Shah said that there is immense potential for development and empowerment of farmers, agriculture and rural areas of the country in the cooperative sector, that is why under the leadership of the Prime Minister the Union government is empowering the cooperative sector with the mantra of ‘Sahakar Se Samriddhi’ and has been taking many unprecedented decisions.
He mentioned about the Reserve Bank’s three very important policy decisions for the cooperative sector.
Firstly, the individual housing loan limit for urban co-operative banks has been doubled. With this decision, the individual housing loan limit for Tier 1 urban cooperative banks (UCBs) has now been increased from Rs 30 lakh to Rs 60 lakh, for Tier 2 UCB from Rs 70 lakh to Rs 1.40 crore and for Rural Cooperative Banks (RCBs), the limit has been increased from Rs 20 lakh and 30 lakh to 50 lakh and 75 lakh, respectively, he said.
In another major decision, Rural Co-operative Banks (RCBs) have been allowed to lend to the Commercial Real Estate Residential Housing sector, which will increase the scope of our Rural Co-operative Banks and also give impetus to the resolution of providing affordable houses to the peo-ple, the minister said.
In the third major decision, now Urban Co-operative banks have been allowed to provide doorstep banking facility to their customers like commercial banks. With this decision, cooperative banks will now get a level playing field in the competitive banking sector and they will also be able to provide door-to-door banking facilities to customers like other banks, Shah said.
The increase in credit flow to the housing sector through co-operative banks will lead to an increase in economic activity, increase capital formation and employment generation, which will have a mul-tiplier effect on the economy, he added.
