Bhumata Brigade stages protest for crop loans

The Bhumata Brigade, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working for farmers, staged a sit-in protest at the district collectorate to press their demand for a ‘white paper’ on the functioning of Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB).
The members of the organisation also handed over a memorandum to the resident district collector, Anil Pawar.

In view of the dismissal of the board of governors of MSCB by the Reserve Bank of India, the NGO has raised the issue of difficulties faced by farmers in procuring crop loans for the coming season.

“The government should ensure that the farmers do not face any difficulty in procuring crop loans,” said Trupti Desai, president of the organisation.

She also stated that the organisation would be handing over a memorandum to the chief minister, Prithviraj Chavan, in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on May 7 had dismissed the board of directors of the MSCB and had appointed two administrators — agriculture and marketing principal secretary SK Goyal and planning secretary S Shrivastava — following a negative net worth of Rs144.22 crore found in the bank's statutory audit for 2009-10.