Soon after the appearance of a report in Indian cooperative .com that Annual General body meeting in cooperatives has reduced democracy to a farce, this correspondent was invited angrily by the Vice-Chairman Chandra Pal Singh Yadav to participate in AGM of Kribhco and report the truth.
To the utter surprise of this reporter, the AGM was conducted in “no hold barred spirit” with participants- one after another expressing themselves freely for and against the functioning of Kribhco.
One delegate named Pradip Kumar Singh who is also an MLA from Bhilwara in Rajasthan raised the question of varying rates of urea between Kribhco and other manufacturers. He brought attention of assembled office bearers to high rates of urea and requested them to rectify the anomaly.
Shashi Kant Dwivedi, another delegate from Chattisgarh lamented at the shortage of Kribhco staff in the state. He also accused Kribhco of giving step-motherly treatment to the state. Shri Kopal from Karnataka said that shortage of urea has aggravated the situation in the state. Farmers are dying in the state, Kribhco should step in to save life , he added.
A delegate from Gujarat wanted change in bylaws of Kribhco so that one delegate from every tehsil could come to participate in the AGM. To increase its representative character he said that he was ready to travel in sleeper class instead of Ac coach.
Gurmait Singh of Punjab wanted direct supply of urea to cooperative societies than to state federation.
Members after members expressed themselves freely before the AGM thereby inspiring hope that democracy is not yet dead in cooperatives. Indiancooperative.com would be only too happy to report such excellent examples for what ultimately matters is success of cooperative movement.