MSCB mess: Ajit Pawar asks officials to be transparent

Deputy chief minister and leader of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Ajit Pawar said on Friday that the two administrators appointed to the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB) should not succumb to political pressure and work in a transparent manner.

Pawar was speaking to media persons after meeting with the board of directors of Pune District Central Cooperative Bank (PDCC) in the city on Friday. “They should act in a transparent manner. If somebody is guilty then facts should be put before the common people,” said Pawar.

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

Since the bank was under the control of Ajit Pawar, his party has seen the action as an attack, leading to a political tussle between the Congress and NCP.

Pawar said that the cooperative sugar mill and the PDCC with which he is associated are not defaulters of the MSCB. “We take care that a cooperative institution is not run in a wrong manner,” said Pawar.