Delay In Multi-State Laws Irk Co-Operative Leaders

Leaders of the cooperative movement are upset over the government's failure so far to free the cooperatives from official control as promised. The continuing delay in amending the laws governing the cooperatives, particularly the multi-state cooperatives, is being now viewed with suspicion.

"In fact, it is almost suspicious the way the government is studiously silent and keeping the draft (of amendments to the multi-state cooperative act) away from cooperators," according to the cooperative initiative panel (CIP).

The CIP, formed to reform the movement by giving cooperatives the necessary teeth to function free from government interference, has Mohan Dharia, former deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, L C Jain, former member of the commission and Verghese Kurien of the Operation Flood fame.

 

The enactment of the multi-state cooperative law has been hanging fire for more than five years now after the government accepted the 1992 Brahm Prakash committee report which recommended the model cooperative act by replacing the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 1984.

Successive governments have failed to introduce the relevant bill in Parliament despite promises to do so.

Hope was revived when former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda announced in January that an ordinance would be promulgated to free cooperatives from unnecessary government control.

"We are aghast that even more than six months after nothing concrete has been done," the panel members say.

While inaugurating the 13th Indian Cooperative Congress in New Delhi in January, Gowda had admitted to the prevalence of political interference in cooperatives. "It is essential that nominations to the cooperative institutions are scrapped and there is no political interference", he said.

Apart from the delay in the enactment of the law, the CIP is sore over the secrecy surrounding the proposed amendments to the existing act that are intended to democratise the functioning of cooperatives by freeing them from government control.

"From the CIP perspective, there are two issues. One, despite umpteen requests on our part and a number of commitments by the government, we are yet to see the total contents of the proposed amendments to the Multi-state Cooperative Act. Past experience makes it obvious that unless the draft is vetted, it is surely going to contain all the discrepancies, albeit in new covers," the panel members say.

The panel contends that government only consults those federations and the National Cooperatives Union of India (NCUI) which have boards dominated by government nominees.

Saying Iffco, Kribcho and Nafed are fine examples in this regard, the panel members say that such bodies would concur with the government for denying the cooperatives autonomy in "their own vested interest". "Thus it suits all of them not to make the proposed amendments public", they say.

Listing the demands of the CIP, the members urge the government to make the draft amendments public.

Alternatively, the government should make a solemn commitment to implement the model act as recommended by the Brahm Prakash committee report.

Only this would give all genuine cooperators confidence in the intentions of the government, the members say.

They say that the ninth plan document also lays emphasis on encouraging the cooperative sector as part of its decentralised approach to boost the economy. In fact cooperative federalism has been incorporated as the basic structure of the ninth plan, they contend.

Kurien, the architect of Operation Flood and chairman of the National Diary Development Board (NBBD), believes that cooperatives can help India become economically stronger.

Genuine cooperatives have an important role to play because they give small producers and consumers an opportunity to bargain for a fair share on what they produce and consume, he says.

"The problem is that because of archaic, colonial cooperative laws, cooperatives have not got a truly fair share", he says.