Kathmandu. The government has decided to return the money to the savers of the troubled cooperatives from the third week of June.

The problematic cooperative management committee, which started its work on April 9, is preparing to return the savings amount by collecting the necessary details of cooperatives and savers.

According to the committee, about Rs 46 billion has to be returned to the savings of about 76,000 savers of the problematic cooperatives. Most of them are small savers. Savings of less than five lakh rupees are categorized as small savers and those above five lakhs are categorized as large savers. Of the total 76,000 saved, only 18,000 are those who save more than Rs 500,000, according to the committee.

Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, Pratibha Rawal, said that a lot of work has been done for the repatriation of savings and the process of returning the savings would start now. “We’ve done a lot of work on it. We will return the money to small savers first,” Minister Rawal said. The committee has stated that it will adopt a policy of ‘starting the repayment of savings and giving priority to loan recovery’.

The committee has also said that the process of returning the savings of the claimant savers will start from the first week of May and the time for re-claiming the demand will be opened in the first week of July.

According to the committee, the amount appropriated by the Government of Nepal in the revolving fund would be spent only as loan if it is not sufficient from the concerned committee’s fund.

Rabin Dhakal, member secretary of the committee, said that the committee would adopt strict policies as per the law for loan recovery.