The apex Fisheries cooperative federation FISHCOPFED has opened its sixth office in Chennai recently. The cooperative federation has been on expansion mode in recent years.

Last month it set up a fresh fish shop in New Moti Bagh in N Delhi- an area that has come up offering habitats to the top bureaucrats of the country.

After change in the management of Fishcopfed in 2006 when the current Managing Director B K Mishra took over, the cooperative Federation has been on growth path.

The incumbent MD worked hard and soon cleared off Fishcopfed liabilities and began to register profit-prompting cooperators of the stature of Iffco MD U S Awasthi christening Fishcopfed as a cooperative success story.

The federation has already opened six regional units in the country besides its headquarters in Delhi. The regional offices are located in Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Raipur, Hyderabad, Nagpur and Chennai.

Talking to Indian Cooperative Fishcopfed MD B K Mishra said that Chennai office would cater to the needs of fishermen in the southern part of the country. “The geographical locations of our regional offices are such that we are able to cover whole of India”, Mishra added.

U S Awasthi Managing Director of Iffco has said India’s fertilizer major has decided to export fertilizers to the countries in South Asia. It has already sold more than 15 thousand tonne of DAP to Nepal.

As fertilizer is in the negative list of export, it has sought permission from India government to sell crop nutrients to Oman in the Middle East.

A sharp reduction in domestic demand for fertilizers caused by a weak monsoon explains why Iffco is intent on exporting its products.  The company has a huge stock of DAP and NPK and it feels it can do a good amount of export.

According to Awasthi, Oman has always helped India with supplies of urea, India should reciprocate by supplying crop nutrients to meet Oman’s needs now.

Awasthi  claimed the fertilizer industry faces a crisis in that domestic  demand for  DAP and NPK  has   fallen by 29 and 27 percent respectively. Iffco alone has suffered a staggering drop of 32 percent in DAP sales and 44 percent in NPK sales, he added.

IFFCO’s ’Shri Lal Shukla Memorial Sahitya Samman’ for the year 2012 will go to the distinguished Hindi writer Shri Shekhar Joshi.

The award would be presented at Lucknow in October this year. A committee of Hindi literary luminaries headed by Rajendra Yadav the editor of the esteemed Hindi monthly ‘ Hans’ has nominated Shri Joshi for the award.

The award was instituted by the fertilizer cooperative giant IFFCO in the memory of the great Hindi novelist and writer Shri Lal Shukla in the year 2011. Shri Lal Shukla’s literary creations such as Rag Darbari and some of his other works received national acclaim.

The award is given in recognition of the literary works depicting the authentic life of rural India.  Shri Shekhar Joshi has authored a number of critically appreciated short stories in this genre.

The first Srilal Shukla Memorial IFFCO Sahitya Award was given to Vidya Sagar Nautiyal by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in Delhi last year.

The award carries an amount of Rs.5.51lakhs and citation.

IFFCO Managing  Director  U.S. Awasthi  has  congratulated  the workers  of the company’s  Paradip   fertiliser  plant in Odisha on producing a record 3000 tonnes of phosphoric acid in a single day on August 12. Mr Awasthi described it as an achievement that merits the highest appreciation.

Harshvardhan, IFFCO’s Communication Manager in Delhi confirmed the news. The unit would produce a total of 18.48 lakh tonnes this year. There are several difficulties facing the Paradip unit yet the plant would achieve its target, noted a source.

The Paradip plant is quite successful in that it yields a huge amount of additional revenue selling gypsium hydro fluorosilicate acid and giving its surplus power to Grid Corporation of Odisha.

Proving once again that it is a cooperative with a difference, cooperative giant IFFCO has decided to honour winners of the London Olympics in boxing and wrestling.

Talking to Indian Cooperative its Managing Director U S Awasthi said that IFFCO salutes the Indian Olympic contingent and announces the cash awards of Rs 10 lakh for Sushil kumar for winning a silver medal and Rs 7 lakh for both Yogeshwar Dutt & Mary Kom for annexing bronze medals for the country in the London Olympics.

IFFCO as the country’s largest organization of the fertiliser cooperatives representing rural India supports rural sports without qualification.

IFFCO also announces a cash award of Rs 2 lakh for the Wrestlers who participated in London, Dr Awasthi added.

A Cash award of Rs 5 lakh has also been announced for the coaches of Sushil Kumar and Mary Kom. IFFCO as the organization of farmers had always supported rural sports at all levels. It was great that rural sports had done the Indian nation proud in the Olympics, Dr Awasthi concluded.

The inaugural session of the International Cooperative Conference went off as planned with the high and mighty of the land assembling on the occasion at Manekshaw Centre in N Delhi on Wednesday.

President of India Pratibha Devisingh Patil, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, State Minister Harish Rawat, foreign delegates, IFFCO’s Chairman and Managing Director were vying for space on the
dais.

An array of speakers touched upon the various aspects of cooperative movement. If Nabard Chairman Prakash Bakshi compared the movement to a tree whose branches are growing while its root is crying for nourishment, NCUI’s President Chandra Pal Singh Yadav expounded the benefits of cooperative governance as compared to the corporate governance.

While foreign delegates shared their international experiences, Dame Pauline Green, President of ICA was conspicuous by her absence. IFFCO sources cited visa as the reason responsible for the cancellation of her programme.

Talking to media on the occasion, IFFCO’s Managing Director U S Awasthi said that the need for holding this conference was felt after the United Nations declared this year as the International Year of Cooperatives. We support the movement as it helps us grow both domestically and globally.

Citing the example of IFFCO’s expansion in Canada where it is about to launch a new project Awasthi said that Canadian Cooperative movement leaders have come forward to be our business partner and a source of strength for us. Our experience is the same in Jordon where our project is doing fine, he added.

Even in India we exist on the basis of support where thousands of cooperators have joined hands to make it a success, he said.

Enumerating the weaknesses of the cooperative movement in the country, Awasthi called for setting up of a cooperative exchange on the lines of SEBI. Private sector has its exchange, Public sector the government funding but cooperative sector is in crisis beset by a shortage of capital in most of the cases, he added.

Appreciating the cooperative leaders of the country who joined hands to make this conference a success, Awasthi said that a leader’s job is to act as a catalyst and the movement would grow on its own.

However, the high security veil around the Makeshaw Centre prevented many people from making it to the function as entry was banned much before the President’s arrival. This led to many people returning from the venue with frustration writ large on their faces.

The two day function has its final session in the NCUI auditorium on Thursday. The run-down auditorium has been spruced up for the occasion.

In a rare show of bonhomie, the entire cooperative sector of the country is gearing itself up to make IFFCO’s International Cooperative Conference a huge success. The two day conference is scheduled from 4th July at Manekshaw Centre in Delhi.

Be it Chandrapal Singh, President of NCUI or Virendra Singh, Chairman of NCCF, be it NAFED Chairman Bijender Singh or NCUI Chief Executive Dr Dinesh-all of them all have taken upon themselves the job of presiding over one session or the other at the conference.

“Cooperative Enterprises Build a Better World” would be the theme of the conference to be inaugurated by Pratibha Devisingh Patil, President of India at 11 am on 4th July.

Apart from IFFCO’s luminaries including Chairman NP Patel and US Awasthi many big international cooperative figures are also participating.

While Dame Pauline Green, President of ICA would speak on the significance of IYC , Wilson H. Beebe, Chairman of the Board, NCBA would recount the experiences of American cooperatives.

Sharad Pawar, Harish Rawat, Shivaji Rao Patil-you name them and they would be there in the first major show of Indian cooperatives in the international year of cooperatives,2012.

Dr Prakash Bakshi, Chairman of NABARD would hold forth on the relevance of IYC to Cooperatives.

Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, President, NCUI would chair the session on “Building a Better World- Global Challenges and Issues for Cooperatives” in which Dr. Dinesh, Chief Executive, NCUI, B.D.Sinha, Managing Director, KRIBHCO, Rakesh Kapur, Jt. Managing Director, IFFCO and Rajeev Gupta, IAS, Managing Director, NAFED would deal with the subject.

Shivpal Singh Yadav, a cabinet Minister in the UP govt would chair a session that would have speakers from China, Japan, Iran, Korea and Regional Director ICA Asia-Pacific.

Virender Singh, Chairman of NCCF would preside over a session in which Rafiqul Islam Rabin from Bangladesh B.K.Mishra, Managing Director, FISHCOPFED and Dr. K.G.Wankhede, CEO, IFFDC would speak.

The next day programme is scheduled at the NCUI Auditorium in which Dr. Bijender Singh, Chairman, NAFED would preside over the session “Women Empowerment and Cooperatives”. Dr Jaya Arunachalam, President, Indian Cooperative Network for Women in Chennai and Ms Armi Zainudin, Former Vice President, ANGKASA, Malaysia would speak.

NAFCUB Chairman H K Patil ,Sanjeev Chopra, IAS, C.B. Paliwal, Managing Director, NCDC, R.K.Tiwari, Jt.Secretary & Registrar (Cooperation), India would also deliver lectures on the concluding day of the conference. The latter would be wrapped up with Dr. U.S. Awasthi moving a Vote of Thanks.

The cooperative behemoth IFFCO is having its Annual General Meeting(AGM) on Tuesday in New Delhi. It would be the biggest assembly of farmers ever organized in the country.

IFFCO is having more than 40 thousand cooperative societies as its members across the country and delegates from them have assembled in Delhi. Delegates are spilling out of the NCUI Guest house to IFFCO’s guest house and Sai Dham adjacent to NCUI.

Taking care of their board and lodging is no mean job but we are used to it as AGM takes place every year, said one of the officials of Iffco, assigned with the task.

Talking to Indian Cooperative Dr G N Saxena, Director of Cooperative Relation at IFFCO said that “each farmer requires at least about 25 gram of gold in marrying off his daughter. Our delegates are elected for a period of five years. Our Managing Director Shri U S Awasthi insists that in their five years of association with IFFCO farmers should get five gram of pure gold each year”. It adds up to 25 gram in a period of five years, he concluded.

“Thus we are giving 5 gram of 24 carat gold to each of our delegates”, Dr Saxena said.

The agenda of AGM does not include change in bye laws or anything of that kind. Routine ratification of the past year accounts and proposed expenditure would be passed in the AGM.

Indian Cooperative.com is producing below the letter IFFCO MD Mr US Awasthi wrote on the eve of close of the financial year. Credit indeed goes to IFFCO which despite facing scores of challenges both local and global kept its winning streak intact and notched up a profit beyond Rs one thousand crore mark. It is a victory of cooperative, it is a victory of people’s movement.Indian cooperative.com complements Mr Awasthi and his team for the spectacular performance -Editor

If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.

Dear Friends,

This famous quote by Steve Jobs sums up our spirits. It is the vision of a better tomorrow for the Indian farmer that has given us the strength to overcome all obstacles and difficulties we face every year. During the financial year 2011-12 in spite of tremendous local and global challenges in the industry we performed quite well in various fields of production, sales, transportation, energy consumption and finance. As you know that in the last fiscal year the value of rupee took a hit vis a vis the dollar resulting in expensive raw materials and finished products, there were other challenges like losses on Fertiliser bond(s), mopping up and non-payment of subsidy as well as concessions on various counts, but in spite of all this we stood firm to our commitment. We managed our foreign exchange and different costs at a level to avoid a possible retail price hike of our fertilisers in October, 2011. I must mention that the board of IFFCO unanimously chose to shield the farmer from all possible brunt even if it amounted to writing off substantial sum on our balance sheets.

But every cloud has a silver lining and in the backdrop of all these challenges the superlative performance of our plants proved to be the silver lining. During 2011-12, our Phulpur, Aonla and Paradeep units achieved highest ever annual production of fertilisers.

IFFCO produced a total of 84.42 lakh tonne of fertilisers , which includes the highest ever production of 44.87 lakh tonne. The Phulpur-II unit produced its highest ever of 11.33 lakh tonne Urea, Aonla-I produced its highest ever 10.66 lakh tonne of Urea. The Kalol Unit produced 6 lakh MT of Urea consecutively for the third time. The Paradeep Unit produced its highest ever 18.41 lakh tonne of NP/DAP, 20.60 lakh tonne of Sulphuric Acid and 7.45 lakh tonne of Phosphoric Acid. It also transferred 93 thousand MT of Phosphoric Acid to the Kandla Unit. The Kandla Unit produced 21.14 lakh tonne of NP/NPK/DAP/ , its worth mentioning that the composite Specific Energy Consumption of Urea Plants during 2011-12 5.825 GCal/MT of Urea.

In the last year our Kandla Unit started producing Water Soluble and Zinc Sulphate Fertilisers. The Kalol and Phulpur-I units commenced Production of Neem Coated Urea from April 2011 and August 2011, respectively.

Our Marketing division has done exceptionally well and proved their metal under most adverse circumstances of high inventories and not so conducive market conditions by selling 121.85 lakh tonne of fertilisers, dispatched over 124 lakh tonne of fertilisers to different destinations across India during the financial year 2011-12. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our member cooperatives especially marketing federations and cooperative societies who stood by IFFCO even under strong and lucrative offers by competitors and ultimately the spirit of cooperation won over the private initiative. This is a big reason of our stupendous performance.

I am happy to inform you that our flagship, ‘SAVE THE SOIL’ campaign is doing well; an effort to promote balanced fertilisation and improvement of overall soil health, ‘SAVE THE SOIL’ campaign will be gradually expanded.

This, along with various other efforts by our marketing and field staff is worth mentioning.

We expect our Profit Before tax (PBT) during the financial year 2011-12 will be more than Rs.1000 crore with an expected turnover of Rs. 25650 crore. The efficient financial management helped the Society to achieve financial excellence by following dynamic hedging strategies.

The cooperative (team) effort by all the departments is highly commendable in achieving new heights by the society. The perseverance shown by the members of the IFFCO family has taken the society to new highs. This determination, dedication and ‘never give up’ spirit was acknowledged in the form of several awards and accolades that was conferred to IFFCO at various national and international platforms. The India edition of Fortune magazine ranked IFFCO at 1^st position in the ‘Fertiliser and Agro Chemicals category’ and ranked IFFCO at the 37^th position overall in the Fortune India 500 rankings for the year 2011, I am happy to say that IFFCO was the only cooperative society amongst the top 50 Indian companies in this ranking. Besides this, IFFCO bagged several recognitions and awards for its IT, Human Resource and Technical divisions. All our plants received a plethora of awards and recognition by various organizations like The Fertiliser Association of India during the year 2011-12. We also received awards in the field of industrial safety, environment protection amongst others. It’s worth mentioning that IFFDC won `The Times of India Social Impact Award’ for its excellent performance in the field of improving rural livelihoods and IKSL received the `Coffey International Award’ for its valuable contributions rendered to the farming community.

I am happy to inform you that all our Associates and Joint Ventures are performing well and we are proud of their achievements.

It should be a moment of pride for us that 2012 is being celebrated as the International Year of Cooperatives 2012 by the UN and this should remind us of our higher goal as a cooperative society and as a farmers institution, I am sure that our Society will continue to grow with its unique corporate functioning done with a cooperative spirit and IFFCO will break all the preceding records to emerge as a global leader in the fertiliser market and be a force to reckon with. I am thankful to our Chairman Sh. N.P Patel , our Vice Chairman Sh. B.S Nakai and other distinguished members on the Board of IFFCO for showing the way forward and for drafting immaculate policies.

I am also thankful to Government of India especially the Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation along with our Joint Venture partners and our Associates around the world along with their respective Governments for extending valuable support and from time to time.

I also take this opportunity to thank the Indian and International Media for their valuable support. Above all, I am thankful to IFFCOs employee unions, officer Associations and all the employees including our contractors, suppliers and their employees for their valuable contribution.

With regards and good wishes.

U S Awasthi

Managing Director,IFFCO

IFFCO has received President Mrs Pratibha Devisingh Patil’s assent for inaugurating a mega cooperative conference scheduled on July 1, 2012  in Delhi.

The International Cooperative Conference would be based on the theme  “Cooperative Enterprises Build a Better World”.

In a letter written to the Managing Director Shri U S Awasthi,  PS to the President Mr Ravindra Jadhav writes “President would be pleased to inaugurate the conference on 1 July 2012 at New Delhi. The exact time will be communicated in due course”.

Buoyed with the Presidential support IFFCO is going ahead with massive preparations to make the conference a huge success. Talking to Indiancooperative.com, Director of Cooperative Development at IFFCO, Dr G N Saxena said that delegates in large number from the country as well as abroad would participate in the Conference.

Readers could recall that the year 2012 has been declared International Year of Cooperative by the United Nations. The conference would be our tribute to the cause of cooperative movement, added Dr Saxena.