mumbai maharashtra opposition leader devendra fadnavis has demanded that the reserve bank of india allow district cooperative banks to fund selfredevelopment of housing societieson thursday fadnavis accompanied by pravin darekar opposition leader in the legislative council and chairman of the mumbai district cooperative bank met rbi governor shaktikanta das to withdraw the circular disallowing district cooperative banks from offering loans for selfredevelopment in september 2020 the rbi issued a circular stating that no cooperative bank can finance selfredevelopment housing projects as it falls under the purview of commercial real estate and goes against the loan policywith the bmc elections a year away fadnavis is pushing for selfredevlopment in mumbai there are over 5800 redevelopment projects pending in mumbai and the residents of such housing societies mostly senior citizens have been rendered homeless said fadnavis in his note to the rbi governorhe said his government had formulated a policy for selfredevelopment following which agencies such as mhada and bmc recognised the scheme he said after the policy announcement several societies took up selfredevelopment and have made huge investmentschandrashekhar prabhu housing expert and who formulated the selfdevelopment policy for the mumbai district cooperative bank said the rbi has now included cooperative housing societies in the definition of borrowersonce the decision is officially announced housing societies will be able to obtain loan through foreign direct investment nationalised banks non banking finance corporations and carry out selfredevelopment they do not need to depend on district cooperative banks he said