The Goa unit of Sahakar Bharati organized a high voltage event in the presence of State Legislative Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant and Niti Ayog Member Shatabdi Pandey, among others, at Sahakar Bhavan in Mapusa last week.
Talking to Indian Cooperative, Sahakar Bharati Goa Unit President Prakash Velip said “Due to the closure of mining industry the condition of UCBs in the state is worrisome. These banks gave loans to the mining activities but due to their closure, recovery has suffered leading to higher NPAs for the UCBs. The state govt must reopen the mining activities” demanded Velip who was also the cooperative minister of state in the past.
Besides Sawant and Pandey, Minister of art and culture Govind Gawade as well as more than 300 cooperators from different cooperative societies of state participated in the event.
Sahakar Bharati Goa Unit President Prakash Velip said, “the event was organized to discuss issues related to cooperative sector. Understanding of issues are important before their solutions”, added Velip.
“At the end of the debate a charter of demands were prepared and we urged the government representatives to frame policies directed at strengthening the cooperative movement in the state; the response was very encouraging”, stated the state unit head.
Sharing his wish-list regarding the co-op sector Velip said “Firstly we demanded that the state govt should set-up a training institute to train the cooperators. It should be operated by Sahakar Bharati which has a battery of selfless trained professionals”, underlined Velip.
“Government should make a budget to help the ailing co-ops should an occasion like this arise. This will help co-ops fight back the bad times”, he underlined.
The discussions also pertained to forming Self Help Groups, Joint Liability Group and others in the meeting. Several other issues pertaining to the cooperative sector as well cooperative banks, societies and related organizations were discussed in various sessions.
The event also saw felicitations of those cooperative institutions which have done well. Former chief minister of state Laxmikant Parsekar inaugurated the Sahakar Sammelan- the first of its kind in the state.
Sahakar Bharat Patron and Director of Reserve Bank of India’s Central Board Satish Marathe who was invited, could not participate due to his pre-occupations.
There are about 3,631 registered cooperative societies in Goa out of which 15 percent cooperatives are from Housing sector and remaining are from different fields like Salary owners cooperative, consumer coop, UCBs and others. There are more than 10 lakh people who are the members of these co-ops in state.
