Union Minister Radha Mohan Singh is supposedly a busy man eager to help farmers double their income but cooperators connected to his constituency in Motihari are not impressed. “Nothing has changed here except some high-voltage co-op events”, they confided to this correspondent without wanting to be named.
“Earlier the Minister would say that since there is a non-BJP party in the saddle in Bihar and co-operative being a state subject he is not able to do things of his choice but with the advent of the JDU-BJP combine, this argument is for the birds, lamented a former DCCB Chairman.
“Today right from village to the centre the BJP holds sway and yet the Minister is not able to revive a single sugar mill”, he underlined.
Motihari is a sugarcane belt which boasted scores of co-operative sugar mills in the past. With the apathy of the state govt and mismanagement by officials they fell into disuse over a period of time.
People of the area had high hopes from the BJP govt and especially from Radha Mohan that he would help these sugar mills come to life again but nothing is visible so far on the ground.
“A leader is made by people and also destroyed by them, one should not forget” he said almost holding out a threat. It is true that he has got several high-level co-op meetings organized in the district but that has a fleeting impact”, underlined the leader.
Last September, at the behest of Radha Mohan hundreds of Sahakar Bharati karyakarta (workers) assembled in the Town Hall of Motihari with an aim to ignite the co-operative movement in the state.
Earlier in 2016, Singh also organized a big meeting of chairmen of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies in the district. More than 500 Chairmen representing PACS across the country participated in the event.
As recently as last month in February the Minister found time to inaugurated an IFFCO e-bazar in the district and addressed IFFCO’s Kisan Sammelan in Areraj.
But observers are unsure as to how far these high-voltage events are going to help the minister politically. They have however welcomed the laying down of the foundation stone for the first dairy plant in Motihari recently. “This is a solid contribution and the Minister has to focus on more such durable projects capable of changing lives of local people”, some them said.