KATHMANDU:- The government has prepared to begin refunding deposits of problematic cooperatives from the third week of this month.

Before this, the Problematic Cooperatives Management Committee gathered details of such cooperatives and depositors. As per the Committee’s assessment, around Rs 46 billion deposits of around 76,000 customers need to be refunded.

Among them, most are small-scale depositors. Those with deposits of up to Rs 500,000 have been classified as small-scale customers, while those with deposits above Rs 500,000 have been categorised as large depositors, of whom 18,000 are out of 76,000, said committee member secretary Rabin Dhakal.

Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, Pratibha Rawal, said that most of the preparations for refunding such savings have been completed, and the process will begin soon. In the first phase, priority will be given to small-scale depositors.

The committee has prepared its procedure focusing on initiating the deposit refunds along with loan recovery. The time for reclaiming the deposits for those who missed the initial phase to claim their deposits will begin in the third week of July.

The committee has made it clear that the government will use the amount in the government revolving fund as a loan, provided that the respective committee’s fund turns insufficient in the refunding.

As Dhakal said, the committee will be implementing tough policies in accordance with the law in the loan recovery.