Revenue and land reforms minister Dulal Bhuiyan at a seminar on Wednesday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, Nov. 26: The defunct housing co-operative societies facing in-built irregularities can now heave a sigh of relief as state co-operative minister Dulal Bhuiyan promised today to revive them.

Addressing a gathering of the members of various housing co-operative societies, Bhuiyan said that the government would make a new act to regulate housing co-operative societies.

“Jharkhand has inherited the legacy of sick co-operative system from Bihar and it’s not possible to revive them overnight,” said Anup Kumar Sinha, the deputy registrar at co-operative societies department.

Admitting that irregularities had been an integral part of several such societies, the minister said the state would do the needful in the proposed new act and frame it in a way that would help weed out the irregularities from these institutions.

A bill would be brought to the state cabinet soon for discussion, he added.

He also proposed to constitute a Jharkhand Co-operative Housing Federation.

“The co-operative societies need to practise honesty in their functioning. Their works should not be limited only to reports but they should materialise,” stressed the minister.

The state co-operative department had organised a seminar to discuss what role the housing co-operative societies can play in the construction of residential houses under national housing policy.

Apart from the co-operative department officials, some members of several housing co-operative societies also took part in the meet.

Officials of the co-operative department said there are well over 800 housing co-operative societies registered in the state.

Most co-operative societies are registered in Ranchi, Dhanbad Bokaro, Jamshedpur, Hazaribagh and Seraikela. However, many of them have gone defunct.

Officials put the blame onvarious kinds of irregularities for the ill health of such organisations.

Officials said that the housing co-operatives constructed around 23,000 units from 1980 to 2003, which were only 55 per cent of the proposed units.

But the construction of housing units plummeted alarmingly after 2003.

Officials, however, pointed out that housing co-operatives such as Adarsh Swawlambi Housing Co-operative Society (Jamshedpur), Bokaro Employees Co-operative Society and Hazaribagh Co-operative Housing Society were still prospering.