January 15: After receiving mounting complaints of a number of cooperatives committing financial irregularities, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has decided to regularly monitor the cooperatives under its jurisdiction.

Considering that the cooperatives that have been accused of not returning the money taken from the depositors on time, the Department of Cooperatives under the KMC is going to monitor the cooperatives in all 32 wards of the metropolis.

Devendra Pokharel, head of cooperatives department of the metropolis, informed that there are many complaints about a number of cooperatives cheating the common people.

 “In the first stage, cooperatives operating against the rules and refusing to return the money of the depositors will be monitored. In the second phase, other cooperatives will be monitored and instructions will be given as per the need.”

If the instructions given during the monitoring are not followed, KMC will readily take actions according to the Cooperatives Act. All the cooperatives are required to operate in accordance with the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Cooperatives Act, 2074.

Even though there has been a drop in the number of people complaining about money fraud in the last 20 days, there have been a lot of fraud complaints this year compared to previous years. Due to this, KMC is about to start monitoring. A month ago, up to 15 complaints were received daily in Kathmandu. As per the information of KMC, now three to four complaints are received daily. Preparations are being made to form a team to start the monitoring work immediately.

Complaints against 118 cooperatives

The depositors have filed complaints against 118 cooperatives operating within KMC area for not returning their money. The number of complaints is for the current financial year only, which was 60 in the last fiscal year. Pokharel, the head of the department, informed that in the six months of the current fiscal year, there have been twice as many complaints as in the previous year. According to him, most of the complaints received were from down-town areas of KMC where the number of cooperatives is high.

KMC tried to contact 47 of the 118 cooperatives several times. Some of them are yet to come in contact while some who came into contact, have not returned the money of the depositors yet. KMC has handed over the operators of such cooperatives to the police while discussion with the remaining 71 cooperatives is underway to return the money of the depositors. Among the 1,955 cooperatives in KMC, savings and loan cooperatives are the largest in number.