The PalliSanchay Bank, ‍a proposed bank to encourage rural savings, will start operation in the first week of July as the current parliament session is expected to pass a related bill.

A temporary head office of the bank will be set up at Bangladesh Rural Development Board office in the capital’s Karwan Bazar area, with branches across 19 districts of the country.

“The specialised bank is going to begin operation in the first week of this July,” MA QuaderSarker, secretary of Rural Development and Cooperatives Division, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.

He said the division had already sought land from the government to establish a head office in Dhaka.

According to the PalliSanchay Bank Bill, the bank derives from the government’s “One House, One Farm” project. Last week State Minister for Finance MA Mannan saidthe bill would be placed and passed in the current session.

On November 11 last year, the cabinet approved the draft law for the rural savers’ bank after the law ministry’s vetting.

The “One House, One Farm” is a project under the Annual Development Programme (ADP), the first phase of which started in 1997 during Awami League (AL) government. The second phase of the project started after the AL-led grand alliance government came to power in 2009.

The government will hold 51% of the bank’s ownership and the remaining 49% would go to the 17,300 member cooperative societies of the “One House, One Farm” project.

However, the government will not take any dividends against its shares.

As per the draft law, the bank’s authorised capital would be Tk1,000crore while paid-up capital Tk200 crore. The cooperative societies’ total fund of Tk1,342crore will be transferred to the new bank.

PalliSanchay Bank will not be governed under the Banking Companies Act 1991, meaning it would remain mostly out of control of the central bank. But like Grameen Bank, it will have to submit reports as per Bangladesh Bank’s demands, and its audited reports will be presented via gazette notification and placed in the parliament.

The bank’s board of directors will consist of 15 members and the secretary of the Rural Development and Cooperatives Division will be its ex-officio chairman.

News:Dhaka Tribune/11-Feb-2014