Birgunj Metropolitan City has identified ten more cooperatives as problematic. The Cooperative and Employment Promotion Division under the metropolis’s Financial Department found additional crisis-ridden cooperatives in Birgunj after carrying out a study on the Sano Paila Saving and Credit Cooperative.

According to Engineer Sunil Karna, head of the metropolis’s cooperative department, the irregularities were discovered when the metropolis intensified its monitoring of the cooperatives following the bitter experience with the Sano Paila.

“Ten cooperatives in Birgunj are found to be in crisis,” Karna said. “We cannot disclose their names immediately. However, we are making efforts to ensure that the depositors get their money back.”

He stated that some of these cooperatives are attempting to rectify the errors in their operations under the guidance of the department.

Karna also stated that he recently presented his views to the special parliamentary committee formed to investigate the misappropriation and embezzlement of the cooperative funds.

The government has so far listed 21 cooperatives as crisis-ridden, with billions of depositors’ money at risk.

According to the Crisis-ridden Cooperatives Management Committee, a total of 59,587 depositors have claimed that the 21 cooperatives have embezzled over Rs36.289 billion of public deposits. Scores of other cooperatives across the country are in trouble but they are yet to be officially declared crisis-ridden.

The parliamentary committee had called Karna to seek details on the Birgunj-based Sano Paila cooperative. According to Karna, out of the Rs135 billion collected by Sano Paila from Birgunj, approximately Rs930 million was lent to 75 individuals outside of Birgunj.

He recalled that the action against the cooperative fraud accused GB Rai's group was initiated from Birgunj.

“Sano Paila was declared problematic on August 21, 2023. Subsequently, a letter was sent to the Central Investigation Bureau of the Police for investigation,” Karna said. “We also communicated with Nepal Rastra Bank to freeze the accounts of the members and managers of the cooperative and disclose their ancestral details.”

Following that, they also requested the federal Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives, and Poverty Alleviation to freeze the land registered under their names. “It was after this that the CIB tasked the Parsa Police with the investigation of Sano Paila,” Karna added. “The ministry also froze their land immediately after Nepal Rastra Bank declared the cooperative problematic.”

Currently, the officials of Sano Paila are absconding and are on the police’s wanted list.