The first meeting of the newly constituted National Level Committee for drafting the new National Cooperative Policy document will be held on 3rd October 2022 at the premises of Pune based prestigious cooperative institution-Vamnicom.
Former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu will chair the meeting. The meeting agenda is yet to be distributed among the 47-member committee.
According to the letter, “the meeting will start at 10:45 in the morning with the welcome of committee members and conclude at 4:15 afternoon with a vote of thanks from the Vamnicom director”.
The Panel has to work out a cooperative policy which can be uniformly applied to the states. Since cooperation is a state subject, the challenge for formulating a policy acceptable to all is no easy task.
Keeping this in mind, almost all the states have been given representation in the Panel. While what a PACS of Tamil Nadu does may be different from that of Bihar, the essential procedures such as accounting, auditing, operative co-op bylaws or software applications should be the same, said a Ministry official emphasizing the challenge before the Panel.
To achieve the goal, an impressive list of experts has been made. The representatives from National Apex Cooperative Institutions, PACCs, Institute of Rural Management (IRMA), State Level Marketing Cooperatives, state RoCs, many academicians such as Dr. Sukhpal Singh, Professor, IIM Ahmedabad and others are in the list and will be attending the meeting.
Some of the top co-operators in the Committee include NCUI President and IFFCO Chairman Dileep Sanghani, RBI Board member Satish Marathe, Nafcub President Jyotindra Mehta, Nafcub’s D Krishan, GCMMF Managing Director RS Sodhi, Kribhco MD Rajan Choudhary, NAFSCOB President Ravindra Rao, Prakash Naiknavare, MD, National Federation of Co-operative Sugar Factories, Nafed Ex MD Sanjeev Chadha, among others.
The Committee has been asked to submit the final draft within 3 months from the date of its first meeting. It is to be noted that the existing National Policy on Cooperatives was brought in March 2002 by the then NDA government.
Meanwhile, Sahakar Bharati has come up with suggestions regarding the proposed National Policy on CoOps based on the inputs of stakeholders. It talks of ease of doing business in cooperatives, schemes to spur growth and development of the sector, easy exit policy and new avenues for cooperatives, hitherto untouched by them.