THIRUVANANTHAPURAM — In a major policy shift aimed at curbing financial irregularities, the Kerala Department of Cooperation has finalized a comprehensive regulatory framework governing how primary cooperative societies acquire, sell, and manage immovable real estate assets. Under the strict new directives, local board members and primary administrators are completely stripped of their autonomous powers to independently finalize land or building transactions.
The structural guidelines mandate that all upcoming infrastructural expansions, property acquisitions, or asset liquidations must pass through an officially constituted district-level pricing and valuation committee. This mandatory layer of institutional oversight has been established to prevent local primary banks from locking up highly volatile liquid funds in overvalued real estate projects—a systemic misstep that previously triggered severe asset-liability mismatches and crippled several high-profile credit cooperative societies across the state.
Moving forward, the new rules enforce rigorous public transparency, including mandatory independent governmental evaluations of all targeted properties. No capital can be legally transacted or transferred for real estate assets without explicit, written pre-approval from the Registrar's department, ensuring that public depositor funds remain focused on community credit needs rather than speculative infrastructure ventures.