The Board meeting of National Labour Cooperative Federation last week in Delhi turned stormy with one of the Board members Ashok Dabas dubbing it as an exercise bereft of any sincerity.
There was no agenda rather just a note was distributed flouting all the rules of cooperative which follow the tradition of circulating agenda in advance so that members could contribute positively to the meeting, said Mr Dabas to the Indian Cooperative.
The Managing Director R N Pandey, however contested Dabas’s statement and said that the Board meeting went off well with and all the necessary paraphernalia attached to it. The Board even decided to hold election in July with passage of accounts.
Readers would be aware that Mr Ashok Dabas and the Board led by Chairman Sanjiv Kushalkar and MD R N Pandey are locked in internecine battle. A show cause notice has been served to Dabas asking him “why should not his Society be declared a non-member “.
Dabas approached Central registrar who in turn appointed an arbitrator. Presently the arbitrator has stayed the execution of show cause notice thereby giving relief to Dabas. But Indian Cooperative has learnt that the MD Mr Pandey has challenged the order of Arbitrator expressed his wish to change the arbitrator before the Central Registrar.
The weakening interest of the UPA government in the cooperatives has led to stoppage of grants to several national cooperative federations including NLCF, NAFCUB etc. Those which are able to generate fund and dole out salaries to the staffs are comfortable but Cooperative Federations like NLCF are in deep trouble.
At NLCF the salaries are distributed but not on time, conceded the MD. We have added some floors to our Sarita Vihar office and have put them on rent. We are also doing some work together with other cooperatives so that our expenses are met for the time being. Government has assured us that grant would be resumed from the next year, Pandey added.