Thrissur: The Co-operation department will explore the possibilities of making use of the surplus money in co-operative banks in the state for developmental activities, Co-operation and Tourism Minister A C Moideen has said. He said the government would initiate a study to ascertain whether the liquor policy of the UDF government affected the tourism industry.
The funds will be used to tide over the sacristy of funds for development works with government guarantee, the minister told reporters on Sunday. “The co-operative sector has an investment of '1.15 lakh crore and it does a business of Rs 25,000 crore a year,” he said. “As of now, the business conducted in the co-operative sector in a year is more that the mentioned in the annual state budget.”
He said that all the black spots in the co-operative sector would be removed and issues regarding the recruitment of Kerala Co-operative Examination Board would be rectified. He said co-operative banks would be modernized on the line of the new generation banks by introducing facilities such as mobile banking.
The co-operative sector would also take up the responsibility of effectively marketing organic vegetables by taking such produce to places where there was scarcity, the minister said.
“Efforts will be taken to unify the lending rates of co-operative banks,” he added.
Mr Moideen said that a study would be conducted to ascertain whether the tourism sector had suffered losses due to the liquor policy. The government would now focus on adventure tourism and more tourist locations would be indentified for the same. “Tourism will be promoted in such a way that the local population will also benefit from it by generating more jobs,” the minister said.
