No elections to co-op societies for six months

HYDERABAD: At least for six months, there will be no elections for the managing committees of cooperative credit societies in the state.The state government has issued a GO extending the life of the committees which will expire by April 24 or had expired by April 21 by six months.It was expected that the government would go head with the cooperative and municipal elections sooner than later.As the Congress had won most of the societies, it was hoped that election would help to retain most of them, despite the Jagan factor this time around.For the last one and a half years, no elections were held for the 2,945 credit societies in the state for one reason or the other.But, with the elections being deferred, the only other election now which the government is seriously considering is holding municipal elections.Municipal administration minister M Maheedhar Reddy said that in a day or two, the government would submit an affidavit in the High Court seeking permission to hold the elections to the municipalities basing on the 2001 census data as 2011 data was not yet available.The official reason given for deferring the elections to cooperative credit societies was that the consultation process, which the cabinet sub-committee is holding for structural changes contemplated in the revival package, will take more time.The government, therefore, felt that it would be inappropriate to hold elections at this stage and implement reforms later.