What is the way forward for UCBs now? Step back and revisit RBI suggestions

It’s perfectly correct to say that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was caught snoozing at the wheel which led to the blowout at the Maharashtra and Punjab Co-operative Bank (PMC Bank). Yet, the central bank’s reading of the larger regulatory topography for urban co-operative bank (UCBs) cannot be quibbled with.

The R Gandhi (former deputy governor of the RBI) Committee’s report on UCBs (2015) was prescient, in particular, for the need to set up a board of management (BoM) in UCBs in addition to a board of directors, and thereby, seconding the view of the Y H Malegam Committee