October 2: Three more cooperatives have turned problematic due to their inability to return the savings of their members and the responsibility of those cooperatives  given to the Problematic Cooperative Management Committee.

After the government declared tem as problematic, the responsibility of distributing the assets and liabilities of Pashupati Savings and Credit Cooperative, Shivashikhar Multipurpose Cooperative and Tulsi Multipurpose Cooperative has been handed to the committee.

The Ministry of Land Management and Cooperatives declared Pashupati as problematic on July 17 and Shivsikhar and Tulsi as problematic on September 11. So far, the committee has taken control of Pashupati's documents and started registering claims for refund from the members. Shivashikhar and Tulsi cooperatives have been instructed to submit all the documents to the committee.

In Section 104 of the Cooperatives Act 2074, there is a provision that the ministry upon the recommendation of the registrar of cooperatives can declare cooperatives as problematic if they cannot return the savings of the members, are in serious financial crisis and have been involved in irregularities.

After declaring them as problematic, there is a legal provision to investigate their assets and liabilities through the management committee. Section 105 of the Act provision that allows forming a management committee to manage the assets of troubled organizations or associations and manage their liabilities.

Such a committee will have to be chaired by a former judge of the high court or a person working as a special class officer in the judicial service, and will have one person nominated by the government as a member along with one person from the National Cooperative Federation, two experts in the field of cooperatives, one chartered accountant who has worked in a bank and financial institution for three years, and a member secretary appointed by the government.

The committee enjoys the authority to investigate the assets and liabilities of the problematic cooperatives and to auction them in order to refund the money of the depositors.

Although it has been five years since the government formed the Problematic Cooperative Management Committee as per the provisions of the Act, the committee has not been able to settle the arrears of a single problematic cooperative so far.

The federal government has declared 15 cooperatives as problematic and handed them over to the committee. The Bagmati state government has also declared Civil Cooperative as problematic.