KATHMANDU: The Department of Cooperatives will begin its monitoring of the cooperatives in the country from mid-January, and more especially those that have been running with financial support from Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). NRB is the central regulatory authority. Department vice-registrar Gopi Krishna Niraula said there is lack of human resources to monitor the cooperatives nationwide. Though the office has been monitoring NRB and other financial sectors, it has not been effectively supervising cooperatives which are mobilizing immense sums of money throughout the nation. NRB has fixed a limitation for banks and financial sectors for loans on house and land earlier. There is maximum loan investment in land and house through cooperatives, according to NRB. Speaking at a programme yesterday, NRB governor Bijaya Nath Bhattarai said some of the cooperatives have invested in land loan more than banks and this is something that the Department of Cooperatives should monitor and discourage investment in this sector. There are some 15,000 cooperatives in operation and 5,000 of them have been working in savings and credit sectors. These cooperatives are said to have mobilized around Rs 63 billion.