Cooperators of Bihar rose up in arms against the announcement of Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi advocating reservation in PACS on the lines of Panchayat and other local bodies. They have threatened to hit the street should the govt decide to go ahead with the plan.
Talking to Indian Cooperative State Co-operative Bank’s Chairman Ramesh Chaubey said cooperatives run on the spirit of cooperation and any attempt to introduce caste into it would amount to killing the spirit.
Cooperators of the state got a chance to voice their concerns related to cooperative movement when they were face to face with the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of the state Nitish Kumar and Sushil Modi respectively on the occasion of celebrations of Co-op Week in Patna last Friday.
Speaking on the occasion Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said his government would reduce the interest rate by two percent on the loan it gives to the state cooperative bank and wanted the bank to pass on the benefit to over 8 thousand primary agriculture credit societies in the state.
The chief minister added the state government would park its money in branches of the state cooperative bank. While the Bihar government gives loans to BSSC at the rate of 9 percent per annum, the BSSC, in turn, gives loans to PACS at the rate of 11 percent per annum.
Nitish also said vegetable cooperatives would soon be formed so that a waste of vegetables could be avoided and vegetable growers could make profits. To achieve this goal, committees at block level, unions at district level and federation at the state level would be formed, through which training as well as necessary facilities could be made available to the vegetable growers. The chief minister called upon all cooperators to help vegetable cooperatives become successful.
But the mood was spoiled by the Deputy Chief Minister who advocated reservation in PACS. Setting off widespread controversy, Sushil Kumar Modi announced reservation in elections to Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) in the state.
He said the reservation was needed to ensure representation for the marginalized sections of society in cooperative bodies.
A large number of people came out on the street in Patna protesting Sushil Modi’s announcement. A source clued up on the developments in the cooperative sector says the move is most likely to deepen the caste tension within the cooperative movement.
The meeting was attended by all the top cooperative leaders of the state except Biscomaun Chairman Sunil Kumar Singh who was away in Malaysia attending ICA’s global conference.
More than 800 representatives of PACS and Vyapar Mandal from across the blocks of the state took part in the meeting, said Chaubey.