The BJP govt has removed Pramod Kumar Singh-an avowed Congressman from the Chairmanship of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Federation (UCF) and has placed Ghanshyam Nautiyal as the new chairman of apex state co-op body. Nautiyal is the former Chairman of Tehri Garhwal Zila Sahakari Bank and former Director of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Bank. Pradeep Kumar has taken over as the Vice-Chairman.
Talking to Indian Cooperative, State Cooperative Minister Dhan Singh Rawat shared the information about the next election of UCF. He also added with a touch of pride “We have appointed Ghanshyam Nautiyal as the new chairman of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Federation”.
With this the illustrious career of Pramod Kumar Singh who ruled over the cooperative horizon of the hilly state for more than a decade has come to a naught, say his detractors. They also point to Singh’s weakening of position at the Boards of two prestigious co-op organizations-NCUI and IFFCO. Singh represents UCF at both.
Amidst allegations and counter-allegations Singh’s camp feels he was removed from UCF by the government in a pre-planned manner. “Before all else, the government dissolved 97 cooperative societies across 10 districts connected with UCF saying the societies are not doing any worthwhile business with the federation. All these member societies were part of UCF”, they aver.
It is learnt that the state cooperative registrar dissolved the board of UCF removing all the 10 Directors. Later a committee of five people were formed which interestingly included Pramod also. Other names were that of Ghyanshyam Nautiyal, former Chairman of Uttarakhand Cooperative Dairy Federation, Haridwar Pradeep Kumar, Additional Secretary cooperative department Uttarakhand Tulsi Ram, Pramod Kumar Singh and Rajendra Singh Negi. It bears recall that Negi had resigned from the Congress and joined BJP earlier.
The meeting of the committee was held last month in which Ghanshyam Nautiyal was elected unopposed by the
committee members as planned. Pramod Kumar Singh didn’t attend the meeting due to his “pre-occupations”. He knew he is going to be removed and to save himself of humiliations he avoided the meeting, said a source.
The next election of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Federation is due in July next year.
Pramod, however sounded resigned and said he did not intend to take the matter to the court. “I am still a member of the managing committee”, he solaced himself. The State government is trying to take over cooperatives in the state, Singh who is credited with making a world-class co-op building for UCF, complained.
“Earlier, the state government had ordered an inquiry into the affairs of UCF but no irregularities were detected. The govt’s charge that UCF had bungled the government share harming the federation turned out to be baseless,” Singh added.
It bears recall that the state govt had slapped a notice on Singh on the issue of irregular transactions in the Federation. While the BJP govt alleges hanky-panky in the affairs of UCF, its outgoing chairman says all allegations are baseless. The notice I have received does not even mention once about the Rs 17.5 crore scam, Singh said.
