NCUI President finally gave in and wrote to the Union Agriculture Secretary a letter for which the agricultural ministry had been tightening the screws on the apex cooperative organization for more than a year.
In his letter NCUI President Chandra Pal Singh Yadav has agreed to cede administrative and financial powers.
Talking to the Indian Cooperative Chief Executive of NCUI, Dr Dinesh confirmed that the letter had been sent but when asked to divulge its content he stalled saying “I have not seen what he has written. It’s a matter between him and the Ministry. So far as I am concerned I will continue to work under the guidance of the Governing Council and the President”.
However, readers could recall the words expressed by Dr Dinesh only a week ago. He had talked about the breaking of the ice between NCUI and the Ministry in an interview given to Indian Cooperative.
Last week meeting was indeed crucial, as Indian Cooperative had informed its readers. It was in this meeting when Chandra Pal decided to cede powers in order to deliver NCUI from a financial bind it found itself in for a long time.
According to sources, the plight of NCUI field project staff that had been without salary for months compelled Chandra Pal to change his mind. Chandra Pal in his meeting with the Union Minister Sharad Pawar had sought his intervention in easing pressure on the staff. Taking advantage of the compulsions of his situation, the ministry babus asked him to sign a piece of paper committing him to relinquishing his powers. When he had returned to his office at Siri Fort Road he knew he had lost it.
It is a matter of time now that funds would start flowing, informed one of the directors at NCUI. But what passes one’s comprehension is the abject genuflection of the highest cooperative body before the imperious govt babus.
On a number of occasions earlier, the issue of abandoning powers had been resisted in the meetings of the Governing Council as it held the elected heads were paramount.
But Ministry’s constant pressure coupled with the arm-twisting tactics of withholding funds compelled the President to bend. And the conditions of the field staff only added to his helplessness.
He won so far as NCUI’s immediate future is concerned but he lost in terms of the future of the cooperative movement.
This experience teaches a lesson too that if you wish to stand up to the babus you have to be economically viable. The cooperative movement that comprehends the entire world is not a product of governmental efforts but an achievement of the people at large.
