Sivaganga Co-op's revival report by August

Sivaganga District Central Cooperative Bank (SDCCB) in Tamil Nadu, which is in the midst of financial problems, will submit remedial measures on the critical deficiencies in its working and its financial position to he Reserve Bank of India (RBI) by end of August, said R Jayaram, special officer of SDCCB appointed by the state government.

Sivaganga is the home constituency of Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

However, the apex bank has not yet relaxed the ban on deposit acceptance of the cooperative bank. The RBI had come out with its directive on April 5 to SDCCB to stop accepting or renewing deposits and refund a maximum amount of Rs 1,000 to deposit holders.

RBI's had directed the cooperative bank to close its business activities under Section 35 A of the Banking Regulation Act 1949.

This had brought to light the fact that the cooperative bank has been bleeding since 1999. RBI in its notification last week has said that only after considering the corrective measures to be adopted by the co-operative bank will it relax its directions.

RBI had appointed National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) to conduct the audit for the year ending March 31, 2005 and submitted its findings on May 10.

The findings of the cooperative bank's financial position has not been made public. RBI as well as Nabard have said that the findings were confidential and cannot be made public.

SDCCB had been incurring losses since 1998-99 and reported an accumulated loss of Rs 39.36 crore.

The non-performing assets was Rs 75.8 crore, estimated to be 35.8 per cent of the total advances. There have been political spats between Chidambaram and J Jayalalithaa, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, on the issue.