The government has refunded more than Rs 1.51 billion to depositors of troubled cooperatives.

Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation Minister Balaram Adhikari on Tuesday, while presenting data prepared by the Troubled Cooperatives Management Committee, told reporters about the government’s initiative to solve the problems of cooperatives. He said depositors of troubled cooperatives have been partially refunded.

Just a few days ago, the National Campaign to Protect Cooperative Depositors (NCPCD) gave the government until November 20 to refund depositors and issued a warning: fourth stage There will be protests if the government does not implement the agreement reached with them. One point of the agreement between NCPCD and the government was to return savings to depositors.

However, Keshav Prasad Paudel, member secretary of the Troubled Cooperative Management Committee, said that the agreement between the government and NCPCD and the process of returning depositors’ money by the committee are different things.

“But their demands also played a role,” Paudel told the Post.

Member Secretary Paudel also announced that full payment has been made to those with savings of less than Rs 100,000 and money will be released soon to another 438 people with larger deposits.

The government is preparing to return depositors’ money through the troubled cooperative management committee. The Minister said that 6,593 of the depositors who requested cash were paid. According to government data, 62,760 depositors requested the return of their money.

Minister Adhikari said that the savings of the remaining 56,605 people will now be returned along with the capital, tangible assets and debt collections of the relevant cooperatives.

Ministry officials also said that efforts to collect the necessary funds for the return of deposits are progressing. “The depositors’ money will be returned by auctioning the seized assets of the problematic cooperatives,” Paudel told the Post.

However, NCPCD representatives claimed that they were not informed about the return of the money to the depositors. Stating that there were 325 cooperative victims in the struggle committee, officials argued that they could have information about this issue if the government returned the money.

“These are all fake information spread by government officials,” NCPCD secretary Ram Narayan Shrestha told the Post. “Until we meet the victims who confirm that they received the money as the government claims, we are not ready to believe.”

The ministry also reiterated that the government is working to ensure that perpetrators of cooperative fraud are held accountable by changing the law on cooperatives.

The statements of the officials implementing the government policy regarding the refund of the money are also contradictory.

During the budget presentation for the 2024-2025 financial year on May 28, the government announced the repayment plan to small depositors.

“To solve the problem in savings and credit cooperatives, arrangements will be made to refund depositors’ money up to Rs 500,000 using properties of cooperative operators or their close relatives as collateral,” said then finance minister Barsha Man Pun. In his budget speech in Parliament

At the time, ministry officials told the Post that the government policy, already approved by Parliament, would come into force from the beginning of the new financial year. However, with five months left for the start of the new financial year, the government is still busy preparing guidelines to carry out the refund process, officials said.

However, Department of Cooperatives officials have a different approach.

“Apart from drafting the rules, we are also waiting for actual data on cooperative victims, but we are yet to receive details from state and local governments,” ministry spokesman Tol Prasad Upadhaya told the Post recently. “After receiving the data, the property of those who misappropriated the funds will be sold and the money of the victims will be refunded.”

But Paudel, member secretary of the Troubled Cooperative Management Committee, said they had everything needed to implement the plan apart from the budget.

“The government is yet to allocate the budget to implement the plan announced during the budget presentation, which envisages returning deposits of up to Rs 500,000,” Paudel told the Post.