There is good news for the Field Staff as finally the Education Fund Committee of the apex cooperative body NCUI decided to release the fund to fulfill its promise of giving a hike of 70 percent to staff connected with these projects. Since before they had been given 35% raise, the remaining 35% was agreed upon in principle in the Friday meeting in N Delhi.
The meeting was presided over by Chairman of the committee Chandra Pal Singh Yadav. Dr U S Awasthi, MD of IFFCO and a member of the Committee was represented by Joint GM of IFFCO Nirmal Kumar. Though the Central Registrar could not participate, there were two representatives from govt-Chief Director and Director of Finance besides Dr Dinesh and Campco representative.
In the meeting the NCUI representatives reiterated that the govt should release the fund as soon as possible to the two govt representatives. Readers would recall that a couple of months ago a consensus had emerged among all the stake holders in a meeting that took place in the agriculture ministry presided over by Central Registrar Ashish Bhutani on the issue of increasing salaries of the staff connected with Field Projects. The govt had also advised the NCUI to fund their salaries from the Education Fund till the process of release from the govt side is completed.
Besides the fund issue, the issue of the lack of contribution by the profit making cooperatives was also raised. The NCUI wanted the govt nominees to intervene in the matter and ask the erring multi state co-ops to fulfill their obligations. The govt nominees reportedly said that there is no provision in the MSCS Act 2002 by which the govt can put them under pressure. Finally it was decided that the govt would write a letter in the tone of advice asking such cooperatives including the non-paying largest urban co-op bank Saraswat to pay up.
IFFCO which is the biggest contributor to the Education Fund wanted online monitoring of all the training programmes to assess their efficacy. Carrying IFFCO MD’s idea forward Nirmal Kumar argued strongly for increasing the use of technology including bar and pie charts.
The Cooperative Education Fund which has a corpus fund of Rs 75 crores receives roughly Rs 12 to 13 crore from the profit making cooperatives who have to pass on 1% of their profit in accordance with the MSCS Act 2002.
There are 42 Field Projects in which 120 people are working. Expenditures on these projects are close to Rs 4 crore annually. A few more crores would ease the pressure, said a source.
Earlier, the govt and the NCUI used to share the expenditures on 50:50 basis but the govt tightening its belt has resulted into a precarious situation. But in today’s meeting the government authorized the NCUI to take as much as may be needed from the Cooperative Education Fund and do the Projects efficiently.
The Cooperative Education Fund Committee is a seven-member body in which President of NCUI, DG of NCCT, head of Vaikunth Mehta are members from the apex body. There are two Multi State Cooperative Societies in CEF – IFFCO and CAMPCO. The other two members are government nominees- Central Registrar and Financial Advisor.