CHITWAN, March 24: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Rabi Lamichhane has said that the government is effortful to solve the problems that have surfaced in the country’s cooperatives sector.

Cooperatives are in existence in almost all the countries of the world with an objective to augment the social, economic and cultural needs of the members by doing business based on the members’ needs, aspirations, skills, knowledge and occupation/profession.

The regulators step up monitoring at a time when many cooperatives have landed in financial crisis in the absence of regular monitoring.

KATHMANDU, Feb 21: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has pledged to take initiatives to address issues pestering microfinance and cooperatives.

KATHMANDU, Feb 8: The proposal to amend the Nepal Rastra Bank Act has been passed by the House of Representatives (HoR), paving the way for the central bank to regulate cooperatives whose transactions are above Rs 500 million.

KATHMANDU, Jan 30: Chandragiri Municipality in Kathmandu has launched training and orientation for the cooperatives for their capacity building. In the wake of the waning status of cooperatives, the municipality has decided to empower them legally.

KATHMANDU, Jan 17: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has instructed the government bodies including the ministries concerned to promptly resolve the problems related to cooperatives.

Translate words into real action

January 10, 2024 07:35 am

Acknowledging the failure of the government to address the grievances of a large number of victims of cooperatives even after a long time, Prime Minister Pushpa Kumar Dahal on Monday directed the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to come up with a concrete proposal to address the issue.

In the wake of mounting concerns and grievances from depositors entangled in the web of troubled cooperatives, the government's recent directive to these cooperatives to submit their work plans by mid-April is a welcome step. However, it is imperative that the concerned government bodies expedite their efforts and take decisive actions to address the deep-seated issues plaguing the cooperative sector in Nepal.

KATHMANDU, Dec 28: The government has asked the problematic cooperatives to submit their work plan to return the money of their member depositors by mid-April this year.

KATHMANDU, Nov 24: The government has disallowed registration, service expansion and establishment of service centers for cooperatives of any nature.

KATHMANDU, Sept 12: The Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation has declared two more cooperatives as problematic.

KATHMANDU, Sept 7: Complaints have been filed against 224 out of about 2,000 cooperatives operating within the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC).

155 cooperatives merged in Gandaki

August 13, 2023 14:31 pm

WALING, Aug 13: As many as 155 cooperatives established in various districts of Gandaki Province have been merged.

KATHMANDU, July 1: The Department of Cooperatives (DoC) says it has been receiving an increasing number of complaints from the members who failed to get back their money deposited in cooperatives.

KATHMANDU, June 29: Depositors have lost billions of rupees due to the lack of effective regulation of cooperative institutions by the government. Due to the lack of effective regulation of cooperatives, deposits worth billions of rupees are at risk after several cooperative operators invested recklessly.

KATHMANDU, June 28: Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has instructed all cooperatives within the metropolis to submit all details within 30 days.

The recent distressing scenes at Maitighar Mandala in the capital city, where victims of various cooperatives have been forced to sleep on the streets for justice, reveal a picture of the grim reality of the state of the cooperative sector in our country. It is disheartening to witness fellow citizens, who have entrusted their hard-earned money to these cooperatives, left in despair, struggling to reclaim what rightfully belongs to them. This situation demands immediate attention from the government to address the deep-rooted issues plaguing the cooperative sector.

KATHMANDU, April 9: A conference of the cooperatives in the country has been concluded with the commitment to build a self-sufficient economy through value chain development by investing the capital of the cooperatives in production, processing and marketing.

TULSIPUR, March 7: The service seekers have been badly affected after the Shiva Shikar Multi-Purpose Cooperatives in Tulsipur suspended its services.

KATHMANDU, March 6: At a time when banks and financial institutions (BFIs) have been struggling to recover their loan amount, savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOS) have also been found landing on similar problems mainly due to the credit taken by their board members.

KATHMANDU, Dec 31: The cooperatives of Nepal have fallen into financial crisis one after another due to their excessive investment in real estate, automobiles and other unproductive businesses.

KATHMANDU, Dec 21: A growing number of cooperatives have started landing in financial crisis in recent days due to slump in the realty business, rising inflation and liquidity crisis in the banking system.

KATHMANDU, Nov 8: The government has decided to blacklist 11 financially troubled cooperatives which have been unable to pay back the money of their member depositors.

KATHMANDU, Nov 1: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has received complaints from 633 member depositors against five cooperatives accused of embezzling a total of Rs 40.05 million.

KATHMANDU, Sept 21: The Department of Cooperatives (DoC) has cautioned the cooperatives not to increase the interest rates on their own.

KATHMANDU, Sept 10: The Kathmandu Valley-based cooperatives have geared up for merger mainly after the cooperatives started to face the problem of liquidity crunch recently.

KATHMANDU, Sept 5: The Department of Cooperatives (DoC) has endorsed new guidelines for the cooperatives looking for their merger. The new guidelines seek to prevent rampant merging of cooperatives in the aftermath of the cooperatives facing financial problems.

Five cooperatives ink merger deal

August 29, 2022 06:20 am

KATHMANDU, August 29: Nepali cooperatives have stepped up efforts for merger at a time when a large number of banks and insurance companies have been looking forward to unification.

KATHMANDU, August 17: The Department of Cooperatives (DoC) has barred cooperatives from issuing loans in real estate businesses, citing soaring liquidity crisis and increasing number of cooperatives falling into problems due to their excessive exposure on realty investment.

KATHMANDU, August 12: The National Cooperative Federation of Nepal (NCF) has urged its member cooperatives not to distribute cash dividends to their members, citing the ongoing liquidity shortage in the cooperatives.

KATHMANDU, August 8: Due to the current liquidity crisis in the country’s financial sector, the member-savers of cooperatives will be able to withdraw only 5 percent of their deposits at a time. The umbrella organizations of the cooperatives have made such a call saying that when all the members demand the return of the savings kept in the cooperatives, there will be an imbalance in the payment process.

KATHMANDU, August 5: The Department of Cooperatives (DoC) has recommended the government to declare Gautam Shree Multipurpose Cooperative as ‘problematic’.

KATHMANDU, August 3: The National Cooperative Federation of Nepal (NCF) has cautioned cooperatives not to invest in unproductive businesses, citing the liquidity crunch seen in the cooperatives.

KATHMANDU, July 30: Gautam Shree Multipurpose Cooperative of Kathmandu is accused of not returning the money deposited by its members as directors of the cooperatives are suspected to have embezzled the depositors’ money.

KATHMANDU, July 4: Cooperatives will now have to report their financial transactions online on a regular basis to the regulator or they will be punished, said the Department of Cooperatives (DoC).

KATHMANDU, June 26: The Credit Information Bureau (CIB) Nepal blacklisted four cooperatives in the past two weeks after they failed to pay loans taken from banks and financial institutions and National Cooperative Bank within the stipulated time.

KATHMANDU, June 1: The Department of Cooperatives (DoC) has received complaints against 41 Kathmandu based cooperatives for embezzling the money deposited by their members.

KATHMANDU, April 8: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) received and registered complaints against 18 cooperatives operating in Kathmandu in four months from mid-November 2021 to mid-March 2022.

KATHMANDU, April 7: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) received and registered complaints against 18 cooperatives operating in Kathmandu in four months from mid-November 2021 to mid-March 2022.

KATHMANDU, Feb 20: Cooperatives look forward to raising their reference interest rate to 16.22 percent from the current 14.75 percent per annum, citing a surge in the banks’ interest rates in recent days.

KATHMANDU, Feb 15: The government has made it mandatory for cooperatives to invest at least 51 percent of their lending in the production sectors in a bid to restrict rampant lending by the organizations to private companies.

KATHMANDU, Feb 7: Nepal Cooperative Bank Limited (NCBL), has stepped up preparations to receive the operating license from Nepal Rastra Bank, claiming it has to deal with the financial matters of around 30,000 cooperatives operating across the country.

KATHMANDU, Jan 28: An agreement has been signed between the government and the Nepal Agricultural Cooperative Central Federation Ltd (NACCFL) for the capacity building of 100 cooperatives in eight districts of Karnali (Salyan, Jajarkot, Jumla, Dailekh, Kalikot, West Rukum, Surkhet and Mugu).

KATHMANDU, Jan 9: The government has ruled out raising the reference interest rate for cooperatives at a time when the cooperatives operators have been lobbying the government bodies to hike the interest rate.

KATHMANDU, Dec 27: National Cooperative Bank Limited (NCBL) has set up a liquidity management fund worth Rs 2 billion, citing to help those cooperatives facing the problem of liquidity crunch.

KATHMANDU, Dec 20: While many Valley-based cooperatives time and again court controversies for embezzling depositors’ money, a number of cooperatives operating in the country’s rural areas have been providing low-income and economically disadvantaged people an easy access to financial resources.

KATHMANDU, Dec 13: Cooperatives, member-based local organizations that are supposed to work in the interest of the general public, have instead been found cheating the small savers time and again, thanks to poor monitoring by the regulator.

KATHMANDU, September 15: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) registered complaints against 27 cooperatives accused of embezzling their members’ deposits worth around Rs 440 million in the last fiscal year.

KATHMANDU, September 11: The government is making it mandatory for the cooperatives to invest 50 percent of their loans in agriculture.