At the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India (NCCF), former Chairman Virendra Singh, who is also a Director of the federation, drew comparisons between NCCF and NAFED, stressing that NCCF has emerged as a leaner and more efficient organization.
Explaining the figures, Singh said that while NAFED posted a profit of around Rs 552 crore on a turnover of Rs 26,700 crore, its operating margin stood at just 2%, whereas NCCF earned Rs 216 crore profit on a turnover of Rs 8,270 crore with a higher margin of 2.6%.
He also pointed out the differences in workforce and administrative costs. NAFED employs about 450 staff with an administrative cost of Rs 112 crore, translating to Rs 25 lakh per employee, while NCCF runs with only 96 permanent and 249 contractual employees, incurring an administrative cost of Rs 24 crore, or just Rs 7 lakh per employee.
Singh suggested that NAFED should open consumer stores across the country to better serve people and also urged the federation to clear the share money of delegates whose memberships were cancelled during scrutiny, pending for several years.
Bijender Singh, who serves on the boards of both NAFED and NCCF, however, urged restraint, asking that the two organizations not be compared. He emphasized that it was NCCF’s AGM and the focus should remain on the federation itself. A few members in the audience, however, remarked that there was nothing wrong with fostering healthy competition between cooperatives.
