Of the many cooperatives that are active in India two names crop up as examples of excellence and instill faith that cooperative movement is yet not dead and that it can be revived to change peoples’ life. One is Amul and the second is IFFCO.
Indian cooperative.com tried to find out what makes Iffco tick and sought an interview with Dr G N Saxena, Director Cooperative Development in Iffco. Iffco is a federal cooperative of more than 40 thousand societies and has absolutely nothing to do with government. It has no government nominee on its board and is managed solely by the cooperators assisted by a team of competent executives under the leadership of Mr U S Awasthi.
To a question what makes Iffco tick, Dr Saxena says “following the true cooperative principles and enlightened leadership”. When we bought Para dip Oswal we converted it into world’s largest integrated plant with such finesse that even multi national company runs away from us. Bagging many prestigious awards like Dot.Cop global award in 2009, Iffco has never looked back as it is a cooperative of the people , by the people and for the people, quips Mr Saxena.
Whatever we earn we plough it back to members. We never forget that we 
arehere because of them, says an emotional Saxena.We ask other cooperatives to follow Iffco model and see the results. But they all line up against Iffco and try to pull us down, lamented the Director.
Showing multi state cooperative act manual he says that in the list of federal cooperatives, 9th place is accorded to Iffco and 17th to Kribhco.It is also clearly mentioned that not more than one federal cooperative society shall be registered with similar and identical objects in the list. Then how can Iffco and Kribhco be competitors, asks a puzzled Saxena.
Right at the start it was decided that Iffco will focus on phosphetic fertilizers while Kribhco will restrict itself to nitrogeneous.We had common board for three years and we even bought land for Kribhco in the beginning.Iffco gave birth to Kribhco to save itself from being fragmented the way FCI was divided,said the Director while rummaging pages of history.
To a question as to what went wrong between the two, Mr Saxena says Ego-Clash. But an elder brother is always magnanimous and we have maintained our magnanimity so far, quips Saxena.
It is indeed desirable that the two brothers should stop fighting and strengthen each other to take on multinationals and prove to the world that cooperative movement in India offers a model, world can follow.
