The Chairman and one of his associates of Solapur based Mauli Multi State Cooperative Credit Society came calling to meet the Central registrar in Delhi last week after the Ministry asked the co-op society to refrain from opening new branches.
It bears recall that the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies has ordered Mauli Multi State Cooperative Credit Society from expanding its area of operation without his prior approval. A notice signed by Jitender Nagar, Deputy Director (Cooperation) read “It has been brought to the notice that your society is opening its branches without approval of the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies”.
The office of Central Registrar had fixed a hearing last week in the chamber of Krishi Bhawan and had directed the office bearers of the co-op to explain the matter personally.
The associate of Chairman Sunil Barode who accompanied him for the hearing in New Delhi and who requested this correspondent not to be named, said that the confusion in the matter was due to a lack of proper communication from the office of the Central Registrar, hinting at the lackadaisical attitude of the Ministry in closing the loop.
He, however hastened to add “we express our apologies to the Ministry and have also stopped opening new branches after the communication from the Ministry reached us”, he said.
“We were planning to open two branches but now we have stopped the work. Presently, the society has seven branches across Maharashtra. Chairman Barode was, however, not willing to talk on the matter.
It bears recall that earlier Multi State Cooperative Credit Societies could open branches without taking permission from the Central Registrar but in a recent notification the Ministry had asked societies to take approval for opening branches from the Central Registrar.
Earlier, cooperators from across the states and especially from that of Kerala had lambasted this circular saying it amounts to throttling the growth of the cooperative movement. “Earlier, we could open branches without taking permission. We fail to understand why the government is harassing the co-op sector by complicating things’’, one of the cooperators asked.
It is indeed a commentary on the current Central registrar’s performance that his tenure has seen almost negligible registration of co-operative societies. “We first want to reorganize the existing ones”, Bhutani had said to Indian Cooperative in the past. But we wonder why reorganizing the existing branches and establishing the new ones simultaneously is not possible.