Cooperatives to have best practices models soon

Gurgaon

As the cooperative sector is being encouraged by the Centre as a major contributor towards the milestone of becoming a $5-trillion economy, steps are afoot to develop a set of best practices to be considered as a standard within these entities for their smooth and transparent functioning across the country.

To set the ball rolling in this direction, the first brainstorming session on ‘International Good Practices Platform for Cooperatives’, coined as Sahakar Pragya by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), was held at the Laxmanrao Inamdar National Academy for Co-operative Research & Development (LINAC) premises in Gurgaon to explore technologies, best practices, and pressing issues throughout the cooperative sector. This was stated in an NCDC press release on November 20.

Speaking on the occasion, National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) President Dileep Sanghani emphasized that cooperatives would play a big role in enhancing people’s income and thereby India becoming self-reliant (Atmanirbhar) as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Hence every government scheme should be prepared in the context of these entities, he said.

The NCUI President, who was the chief guest at the session, also asserted that the dream of sabka saath sabka vikas was possible only through the cooperatives, which have engaged around 95 per cent of the farmers in the country in around 8.50 lakh cooperatives in various sectors.

Sahakar Pragya, which has been launched by NCDC, is a platform aimed at easing the mutual sharing of knowledge and also helping new cooperatives, involving youth and women in particular, to benefit from understanding the opportunities and scope of the cooperative sector.

The knowledge exchange would also assist in understanding and infusing 21st-century technological aids, which can lead to a quantum jump in efficiency and productivity of the cooperatives and consequently in the value and supply chain across sectors, said Sundeep Nayak, MD, NCDC.

Ramesh Vaidya, National President, Sahakar Bharati too felt that the cooperatives were “Invisible Agents of Change” and can help realize the dream of the Prime Minister to make the country self-reliant and position India as number one on the world map. He also praised Nayak for his commitment and spearheading various innovative schemes to help boost the income of the cooperatives.

During the interactive session, moderated by Capt. Prof Pawanexh Kohli, Advisor, NCDC, experts like Satish Marathe, Member Central Board of RBI and Jyotindra Mehta among others also talked about practices devised and deployed across geographies, recommended models and practices that are proposed by multilateral bodies like the ICA, the FAO, the NEDAC, the World Bank, the UNDP, the ILO, the UNESCAP, the OECD etc.

Led by Amit Shah, the newly created Cooperation Ministry is also in the process of a new cooperative policy and proposes to work in tandem with states to strengthen the cooperative movement.