A delegation of Sahakar Bharati led by its Founder Member Satish Marathe met Union Cooperative Secretary D K Singh and congratulated the govt for a futuristic and forward-looking budget. The other members of the delegation were Sahakar Bharati President D N Thakur, senior member Jyotindra Mehta and Organizing Secretary Sanjay Pachpor.
Later, the team visited the Press Club of India and talked about the meeting with the Indian Cooperative team.
Discussing the budget Satish Marathe said that a significant increase in the budgetary allocation for cooperatives has been done this year. Earlier, the budgetary allocation was about 125-150 crore but this time around it has seen a many-fold increase to Rs 900 crore.
Dittoing Marathe, D N Thakur said that it is for the first time that a separate budget for training and education has been earmarked. A whopping Rs 25 crore has been earmarked for Cooperative training and Rs 30 crore for cooperative education, he added. There is no longer a grant-in-aid situation, he added with a sigh of relief.
Marathe said that the introduction of cooperative credit guarantee funds is also of great significance as it would save smaller cooperatives from the burden of collateral at the time of taking loans from banks. This fund will act as a bulwark for smaller co-ops while approaching a bank for loans and advances, he added.
Marathe, who is also on the board of RBI, was especially happy with the provision of Rs 274 crore kept aside under the subhead of “Prosperity through Cooperatives”. Explaining, he said this fund could be used in boosting new generation co-ops and those which falter for want of capital. “Such an idea is sure to boost the co-op movement”, he underlined.
The Umbrella Scheme “Prosperity through Cooperatives” would have a number of subcomponents with the aim of all-round development of cooperatives in the country, said Marathe.
“We thanked the Secretary and assured him that Sahakar Bharati will work in tandem with the govt as we have a huge network across the country”, said Thakur underlining that Sahakar Bharati is uniquely placed in the sense that it is not connected to any particular co-op and has its focus on the entire sector.
Talking about the Vamnicom, the leaders thanked Ministry officials that a separate budget for co-op institutions has been started. “We want it to grow as a Centre of Excellence, not as a University under UGC, trapped in the usual mould; we want it autonomous on the lines of IIT or IIM”, clarified the delegation.
The Sahakar Bharati delegation also suggested to Secretary Singh that a body like DICGC should be set up at the national level for the three lacs Primary Co-op societies which include PACS, Primary Milk Cooperative Societies, and others.
Explaining the idea further, D N Thakur added that a guarantee of say Rs 25 or 50 thousand will encourage people to deposit money at the grass-root level thereby ending the perennial fund crunch at the village level. Besides integrating villagers with a national-level organization, this move will also motivate people towards saving, he stated.
The delegation congratulated the Secretary for Rs 350 crores earmarked for digitization of Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies. The scheme aims to computerize 63000 PACS leading to an increase in efficiency, profitability, transparency & accountability in the working of PACS, they felt.
