Ministry of Cooperation Restores CRCS-Sahara Refund Portal to Expedite Genuine Depositors’ Claims

The Ministry of Cooperation has restored the CRCS-Sahara Refund Portal to resume the processing of pending claims from genuine depositors of the Sahara Group cooperative societies. The refund mechanism follows an Hon’ble Supreme Court order dated 29 March 2023. Till date, Rs 9,267 crore has been refunded to 41,56,711 depositors directly into their Aadhaar-seeded bank accounts. The portal's operations had previously faced disruptions due to the sealing of premises in November 2025 and subsequent operational, technical, administrative, and financial constraints. Following intervention and coordination by the Ministry of Cooperation and the Government of Uttar Pradesh, essential infrastructure, hardware, and IT systems were restored, allowing the verification and processing of the remaining roughly 20 lakh applications to resume through a secure, digital, paperless, and verification-based online portal administered by the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS).