Pune, July 29: Relief for small depositors, who form the backbone of the state’s over 23,000 cooperative credit societies, with deposits of over Rs 29,000 crore, is on hand. Announcing the formation of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Credit Society’s Deposit Guarantee Corporation (DGC), UC Sarangi, Registrar of Cooperatives (RoC), said the aim is to offer insurance cover to deposits up to Rs 50,000 with these credit societies. The DGC, which is slated to begin operations from October 2, will have a share capital of Rs 100 crore to begin with, going to Rs 200 crore later. This will be contributed by promoter societies, at the rate of 1% of their working capital and DGC has already collected Rs 46 crore from 60 societies. The target share capital will be raised by August end, which is also the deadline for membership of the DGC. This contribution by individual societies will be credited towards their Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR), Mr Sarangi explained.
The DGC will deposit 85% of its premium in government securities, the balance 15% will be used to run the DGC.The DGC has initially targeted 1,350 of the 1,400 credit societies which have deposits of Rs 1 crore. These societies are those which have been allotted A and B category status according to norms devised by the RoC.

Lalit Gandhi, president, State Federation of Cooperative Credit Societies, and now chief promoter of the DGC, told reporters here today that over a five-year period they will extend insurance cover to all credit societies.
He added that the insurance cover extends only for deposits of up to Rs 50,000 since these form a bulk. He pointed out that of the total Rs 29,000 crore deposit, a substantial Rs 22,000 crore comprises deposits of not more than Rs 50,000. Bureau Report