The UPA government has introduced a proposal for a new law in the Lower House of Parliament aimed at enabling the National Cooperative Development Corporation to give loans to  companies and such units managed by farmers selling agricultural produce on the market.

Sources say companies managed by farmers can greatly improve the living conditions of primary producers and thus contribute to a rapid transformation of the rural economy.

Analysts are of the view that the companies run by farmers are generally handicapped by their lack of resources and credit and this has prevented them from doing their work well.

Traditionally, NCDC has been involved in financing the agricultural and allied sectors only but over a period of time it expanded its gamut to include other areas of economic activities such as tourism, rural housing and power generations.

Till 2002 NCDC had a minor role to play in cooperative financing as it would finance only those projects which are sent through the state governments. Given the political culture in the states, government lackadaisical approach was leading to nowhere. An amendment in 2002 empowered NCDC to finance a project directly.

In a short period of eight years NCDC financing rose from rupees 350 crore to about 3600 crores. The sixteen spread out branches of NCDC began to organize meetings of cooperative societies and motivated people to come up with viable projects.

They helped cooperative societies in making financial proposal and began to collect forms. The collected forms were sent to headquarters where an expert team would examine them for viability from every angle.

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has called upon the cooperative institutions to make a contribution to expansion of storage and cold storage capacity in the country.

Addressing the 72nd Meeting of General Council of National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), the minister said that cooperatives had an important role in the post-harvest scenario.

NCDC sanctioned creation of nearly half a million tonnes of storage space in 2010-11 and almost the same amount of capacity in 2011-12 including repairing and improving of the existing godowns, added the minister.

According to the official sources, developing a ring of cold stores would be one of the maor activities of NCDC, it would also be an agency responsible for accrediting warehouses. the new arrangement would ensure more effective supply chains, better grading and quality, better risk management, higher price paymentfor farmers and better services for consumers.

According to Pawar, the union cabinet has approved of an amendment to the NCDC act to cover producer companies within its range so that they may get supported by it.

Mr pawar was all praise for ncdc and made a particular mention of its continuous efforts to improve its performance to be able to meet the challenges that lie ahead of it.

Mr Nido Pavitra, State Parliamentary Secretary for Cooperation in Arunachal Pradesh has vowed to take cooperative movement in the state  to greater heights. The state a big loss recently in the  sad demise of Dorjee Khandu, the Chief Minister.

Mr Pavitra has given a blue print for developing cooperative movement in areas such as rural housing, tourism, surface transport, stone crushing activities, hospital & hospitality, micro finance, tea, piggery, poultry, dairy, micro hydel, banking. He also said that  working capital for Apex Bank at lower rate of interest would be given.

Mr Nidao Pavitra, State Parliamentary Secretary for Cooperation met NCDC Managing Director Govindan Nair who assured him to consider proposals under direct funding scheme against state government guarantee or normal scheme which would be recommended by the state government.

The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) will soon expedite implementation of Integrated Cooperative Development Project (Part—II) for Arunachal Pradesh and will release subsidies and remaining installments of the ongoing projects.

At the 71st General Council meeting of the National Cooperative Development on 6th April, 2011 Shri Sharad Pawar,Union Minister  commended the NCDC for releasing financial assistance to the tune of Rs.4703 crore thus making highest ever disbursement.

Besides, a record amount of Rs.6292 crore was also sanctioned.  During the meeting, Programme of Activities of NCDC for the year 2011-12 involving a financial outlay of Rs.4000 crore was approved.  It was noted that the recovery rate of loans provided by NCDC continues to remain high at 99.7%.

Pawar said  that agriculture is expected to grow at 5.4 per cent in 2010-11, and early estimates indicate bright prospects of foodgrains production at 232 million M.T.  This achievement is in spite of erratic climatic factors and global financial crisis.

Priority will be given to programmes aimed at benefiting weaker sections and remote regions.  Integrated Cooperative Development Projects and projects in new thematic areas.  Due emphasis will be given for assisting small cutting–edge projects in larger numbers, added Pawar

In a function which takes place once in two years , twenty-seven primary cooperatives were honoured with Cooperative Excellence Awards 2010 for their exemplary work in N Delhi. The awards were given by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries Shri Arun Subhash Chandra Yadav.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Yadav said, the Centre is considering amendment in the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act and a Constitution Amendment Bill to address the functional and structural constraints that have crept into the system over the years. He said, he would try to increase the number of societies for awards from each of the States.

Cooperatives with a network of about 6 lakh cooperative societies of various types and levels and a membership base of more than 25 crore spread from the remotest village to the national level play a significant role in the economic development. They have an important role to play in boosting rural economy and reducing dependence on agriculture by encouraging off-farm livelihood opportunities and promoting rural infrastructure, the Minister added.

The award was to be given by Sharad Pawar but his preoccupation with non cooperative matters perhaps prevented him from participating. The award is given by National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) on biennial basis to one primary level society from each State. The objective is to encourage and give due recognition to cooperatives which are able to sustain and work for development and prosperity of agrarian society.

The activities cover a wide range of work related to handlooms, marketing, consumer goods, fisheries, credit and services, large sized multi-purpose cooperative societies, horticulture, cold storage and dairy etc. He expressed hope that the awards will go a long way in instilling a new sense of hope and bring renewed vitality and vibrancy in cooperative societies to perform better in the days ahead.

In the General Council of NCDC ,Union agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said that NCDC has released financial credit to Cooperative Societies to the tune of Rs.3785 crore in 2009-10. General Councilwhich met on 10th November also noted that net NPA of the Corporation was reduced to zero and recovery rate was 99.77 %.

Speaking on the occasion Mr Pawar stated that in order to enable the cooperatives  to overcome  the functional and structural constraints and anomalies, a Constitution Amendment Bill and  amendment in the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act is under active consideration of the Govt. of India. Further,  the Government proposes to  introduce a new scheme for interest subvention at the rate of  two percent for loans from NCDC  to cooperatives to facilitate softer lending rates for agricultural and allied activities.

The Minister listed  the new initiatives taken by  NCDC for strengthening its services to the cooperative sector.  A new Central Sector Scheme has been formulated for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of potentially viable sick cooperative units with NCDC as the nodal agency for implementing the scheme. This will result in revival of a large number of sick units and restoration of critical infrastructure.

Inclusion of additional services like Tourism , Hospitality and Transport, Electricity & Power, Rural Housing , Hospitals, Healthcare and Education under the purview of NCDC’s financing will enable cooperatives to access finance for taking up activities in these new areas.

Creation of a Cooperative Enterprise Development  Fund and  initiation   of a Corporate Social Responsibility Programme will facilitate relatively new and weak cooperatives to avail of project finance for innovative initiatives.

B.Ramachandran Nair

National Cooperative Development Corporation has been improving its performance year after year. It is customary to review its improving performance by the high powered 51 member General Council on a half yearly basis.

It is high time, its sustained support from 1962 onwards to the nation’s cooperative structure is evaluated. It has made marvelous contributions in evolving, strengthening and consolidating the agri marketing, processing and storage segments,     pre-harvest input sector, weaker section’s programmes, human resources programme etc.

Government of India support for schemes were significant up to say,1980, but thereafter routing of plan funds through NCDC has been negligible. Similarly, the last scheme in which  budgetary support to NCDC was given was the Grant- in -Aid for the purpose of the NCDC Act, and this dried up long back, may be before 1980. It means that the NCDC had to fend for itself for last 30 years.

NCDC has two streams of resources, the NCDC’ corpus of funds and the skilled, innovative and dedicated human resource it has built up over the years. This is important to note, as NCDC’s twin organization, The Central Warehousing Corporation, is equipped with/owns huge warehousing infrastructure spread over the country. NCDC runs its activity as a human resource based organization to a considerable degree. NCDC is a sure candidate to get International recognition like Magsaysay Award etc, provided one can move its case through proper codification and documentation of its achievements over a period of half a century.

NCDC is a unique and is a value-based organization. This aspect is not adequately perceived by stake holders. NCDC needs to make recruitments on war footing to avoid sudden vacuum of man power.

The pioneers of cooperative movement in India had a vision of an economy based on cooperation and cooperation alone. They envisaged an economy in which- from a needle to airplanes- everything would be produced by the cooperatives. National Cooperative Development Corporation( NCDC)  has taken a giant step in this direction by expanding the gamut of its financing to include tourism, rural housing and  power generation in the first phase.

Traditionally, NCDC has been involved in financing the agricultural and allied sectors only but as its Managing Director Mr Govindan Nair puts it “We are expanding the gamut to include other areas of economic activities. According to Mr Nair the proposal has already been passed by the Board of Governors  and has gone to the  government for notification.

Till 2002 NCDC had a minor role to play in cooperative financing as it would finance only those projects which are sent through the state governments. Given the political culture in the states, government lackadaisical approach was leading to no where. An amendment in 2002 empowered NCDC to finance a project directly .

In a short period of eight years NCDC financing rose from rupees 350 crore to about 3600 crores. The sixteen spread out branches of NCDC began to organize meetings of cooperative societies and motivated people to come up with viable  projects. They helped cooperative societies in making financial proposal and began to collect forms. The collected  forms were sent to headquarters where an expert team would examine them for viability from every angle.

Two other things that the NCDC has taken up  are going to impact cooperative sector in a big way. One is financing the storage facilities at a grass root level.The second is  planning packages with managerial input for those cooperative units which are weak. It has taken up the matter with state governments for building large scale infrastructure of ware houses and godowns at village level. If successful the role of middlemen will become story of past.

Similarly, rehabilitation and support package for weak cooperative units are also in the pipeline. A corpus of Rs 250 crores  will indeed make so many units viable. This corpus will have  contributions from Centre ,NCDC, NABARD, IFFCO and state governments. NCDC will be the nodal agency which will also offer managerial input to such units.

NCDC is not in loss. And one reason for this is its strict scrutiny procedure. With greater support from the government NCDC can indeed become an agent of change in the country. The scale at which it operates presently is still small given the vastness of the country. But NCDC Managing Director Mr Govindan Nair is confident of making a mark as in the second phase of expansion he intends to include financing of health and education cooperatives by NCDC. This will go a long way in saving citizens from the clutches of education and health mafias.