Moving in line with the 97th Constitutional Amendment the Akhilesh government has established a separate cooperative election commission for holding timely polls to the teeming cooperative organizations in the state.
It will be a three member commission with a retired bureaucrat as its chief. The chief commissioner will have five year tenure. There are about half a lakh cooperative bodies in Uttar Pradesh.
The change envisages the creation of a vibrant cooperative movement in UP. The cooperative bodies had to suffer the fate of Maya and Mulayam’s political fortune as each tried to replace others’ men in the past. NCUI President Chandra Pal Singh is himself a votary of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The 20 million cooperators will now be able to seek direct election to the post of chairman. The move will not only restrict the powers of the registrar of cooperatives but also ensure greater democracy in the functioning of the cooperative bodies.
The latter would no longer be exposed to the dangers of being dissolved and controlled by administrators.
Sources say as most of cooperative societies in UP are controlled by various departments of the govt, there has been an urgent need to ease the pressure cooperatives have been under at work.