Peeved at registration of a police case against its loan recovery official, Punjab State Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank Limited (PSCADB) has decided to take up the issue with state government.

"Certainly, we will take up the matter (police case against recovery official) with Registrar of Cooperative Societies, which will in turn raise this issue with the state (Punjab) government," a senior official of the state-run PSCADB told PTI here.

"We want (state) government should pass instructions to police not to lodge any FIR or entertain complaints against our recovery officials, who are just performing their duties," he said, "otherwise, our staff will get discouraged and demoralised to recover loan money from defaulters."

Police on November 20 had registered a case against the manager of Pathankot branch of the cooperative bank for abetting a farmer to commit suicide. A 60-years-old farmer was reported to have committed suicide allegedly because of harassment by cooperative bank official for not paying loan.

Officials of PSCADB can launch recovery process against defaulters under Punjab Cooperative Societies Act and Agriculture Development Banks Act.

PSCADB, which has extensive reach in rural and far-flung areas of the state, faces outstanding loan payments to the tune of Rs 2,019 crore till September this year with whopping 30 per cent of its borrowers (8.40 lakh) defaulting on loan payment.

During the current fiscal, the bank has so far been able to recover just Rs 117 crore from defaulters against the targeted recovery of Rs 903 crore.