National Cooperative Federation of Nepal Chairman Keshav Prasad Badal was unanimously elected for the first time to the board of International Cooperative Alliance-Asia and Pacific. The election was held in Ashok Hotel, Delhi last month where Li Chunsheng of China, NCUI President Chandra Pal Singh Yadav of India and Ms Chitose Arai of Japan were elected Chairman and Vice-Presidents respectively.
Badal was happy as his name on the board of ICA-AP was announced by the election officer Charles Gould. In his address on the occasion, he talked about the cooperative movement of Nepal and its future plans. The board members, foreign and Indian delegates greeted him.
Cooperators lined to greet him as soon as his name was announced. Talking to this correspondent later, he said
Nepal has about 5.2 million individual cooperative members, 33,000 primary cooperatives , 325 district level cooperative unions, 20 central level unions one National Cooperative Bank and one apex body of which I am the chairman. In Nepal, there are 75 districts and every district is having cooperatives, he added.
Thousands of cooperators in Nepal lost their lives due to earthquake. More than 2,000 houses of individual cooperators collapsed and about 500 offices of cooperatives were damaged.
Readers would note that in April 2015, the earthquake in Nepal had killed 9,000 people and injured nearly 22,000 people. Badal had organized relief work in the earthquake affected areas with the help of IFFCO and ICA.
NCF is the apex body of cooperatives in Nepal and was established in June20, 1993. It represents 27,000 cooperatives in all spread across the Himalayan country.
