The published list of voters and a scramble for nomination for the Board of directors in NCCF has on sidelines raised the issue of bogus receipts being rumoured to be deposited by prospective candidates to acquire the credential of “having done business with the NCCF”.
According to the NCCF Bye-laws a member society needs to transact a certain amount of business to be able to fight for directorship. But it is being said that majority of member-societies have not done any business as shown by NCCF records but are now coming up with bogus receipts to prove their credentials.
When Indian Cooperative raised the point with the election officer Mr S D Induria he said the bye-laws of NCCF would be followed at all cost. Induria, who recently retired as chief director from the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperation is rated highly in terms of knowledge in cooperative matters.
Showcasing the perfect application of bye-laws in preparation to voter list published last week Induria said three conditions were observed in screening delegates. These are candidate’s eligibility in terms of share-capital, possession of proper nomination papers from the consumer cooperative society and finally, that nomination papers are received within the deadline.
A list of delegates or voters has finally been cleared in the run up to the February 6th election for the national apex consumer cooperative body NCCF last week. And with this begin the formalities for filing nominations for Directors or what is known as members of the board.
Once the names of successful delegates have been published on the notice board, the eligible candidates are free to file nominations, said S D Induria while talking to Indian Cooperative.
Nominations for the Directors are open till 4th of February. Induria announced that Shakti Singh the Assistant Manager in NCCF would receive nominations on his behalf, all days except Sunday. He asserted the scrutiny of directors’ nomination would be absolutely fair.
This would be in the first half of 5th February and a list of candidates would be published by noon. However, the final list of contesting candidates to be posted in the evening would wait till the deadline for withdrawal of nominations comes to an end, he elaborated.
He asserted the NCCF byelaws would strictly be followed in the scrutiny. It is being heard on the grapevine that some members may procure bogus receipts to show their societies have transacted the minimum required business with the NCCF, a condition stipulated in the NCCF bye-laws to be eligible to fight the Board election.
There is no need to worry as we would adhere to the highest standards of the election procedures, said Mr Induria to Indian Cooperative. On 6th February the election would take place followed by the general body meeting under a new Board and a new Chairman and vice-chairman thereby ending the role of the administrator, as also controversies dogging the apex consumer cooperative for the past 9 months have halved its business compared to the past years.
Bogus receipts for having transacted business with NCCF by the Member Stores just to become eligible to contest election??? Its surprising. There is an easy formula for verifications to plug the loophole. NCCF Head office / Election officer can collect the commodity-wise details of Business transactions during the year from the Regional offices of NCCF located all over the Country and conduct cross verification in order to ascertain correctness of the information submitted by the member stores in their nomination forms.