decided to provide massive financial assistance ( since revised to rs. 19, 330 crores ( rs. 193 billion ) from the originally estimated rs. 13, 596 crores rs. 136 billion ) to the financially haemorrhaged short term cooperative credit structure but also, only appropriately, made it conditional upon rigorous and stringent compliance with, and progress on, pre - specified critical parameters like facilitating regulatory powers of the rbi, limiting equity participation of state governments in cooperative banks to 25 %, limiting the powers of state governments to supersede the boards, removing state government intervention in all financial and internal administrative matters, special audits of pacs, district central cooperative banks ( dccbs ), and state cooperative banks ( scbs ), conduct of statutory audit by chartered accountants ( cas ), timely election of board of directors, appointment / co - option of professionally qualified directors and appointment of chief executive officers ( ceos ) in accordance with the rbi - prescribed fit - and - proper criteria, training and human resources development, computerization, common accounting system ( cas ) and management information system ( mis ), by amendment of state co - operative societies acts and amendment of rules and adoption of appropriate bye - laws. in this context, it is encouraging to note that 25 states have since signed the mous for implementation of the revival package. these are andhra pradesh, arunachal pradesh, assam, bihar, chattisgarh, gujarat, haryana, jammu & kashmir, jharkhand, karnataka, madhya pradesh, maharashtra, manipur, meghalaya, mizoram, nagaland, orissa, punjab, rajasthan, sikkim, tamil nadu, tripura, uttarakhand, uttar pradesh and west bengal. between them, they cover more than 96 % of the stccs units in the country. the financial assistance under the package is released only on the implementation of legal and institutional reforms. nabard has, as on 31 october, 2011, has already released an amount of rs 9002. 98 crore ( rs. 90 billion ) towards government of india ’ s share for recapitalisation of pacs in seventeen states while state governments have released rs. 855. 53 ( rs. 8. 5 billion ) crore as their share. it is also very encouraging to note that 21 states have amended their respective state cooperative societies acts and these are andhra pradesh, arunachal pradesh, bihar, gujarat, haryana, karnataka, jammu & kashmir, jharkhand,

on nri rupee deposits, interest rates in the last couple of years have been in line with interest rates on deposits by residents, and are currently even lower than domestic interest rates. so far as other non - debt creating inflows ( i. e., foreign direct investment, portfolio investment or remittances ) are concerned, such inflows by their very nature are commercial in nature and enjoy the same returns and risks, including exchange rate risk, as any other form of domestic investment or remittance by residents. the cost to the country of such flows is the same whether they are added to reserves or are matched by equivalent foreign currency outflow on account of higher imports or investments abroad by residents. on the whole, under present conditions, it seems that the “ cost ” of additional reserves is really a non - issue from a broader macro - economic point of view. indian interest rates have come down substantially in the last three or four years. they are, however, still higher than those prevailing in the u. s., europe, u. k. or japan. this provides an “ arbitrage ” opportunity to holder of liquid assets abroad, who may take advantage of higher domestic interest rates in india leading to a possible short - term upsurge in capital flows. however, there are several considerations, which indicate that “ arbitrage ” per se is unlikely to have been a primary factor in influencing remittances or investment decisions by nris or foreign entities in the recent period. among these are : · the minimum period of deposits by nris in indian rupees is now one year, and the interest rate on such deposits is subject to a ceiling rate of 2. 5 per cent over libor. this is broadly in line with one - year forward premium on the dollar in the indian market ( interest rates on dollar deposits by nris are actually below libor ). · outside of nri deposits, investments by foreign institutional investors ( fiis ) in debt funds is subject to an overall cap of only $ 1 billion in the aggregate. in other words, the possibility of arbitrage by fiis in respect of pure debt funds is limited to this low figure of $ 1 billion ( excluding investments in a mix of equity and debt funds ). · interest rates and yields on liquid securities are highly variable abroad as well as in india, and the differential between the two rates can change very sharply within a short time depending on market expectations.