The fifth meeting of the National Level Committee for drafting the document of new National Cooperative Policy decided to meet once again at the NCUI headquarters later this month to ready the final draft of NCP.
The scheduled two-day meeting of the Panel headed by Suresh Prabhu at Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) in Gurugram, ended on the very first day with members after members expressing the need to enrich their drafts before the final compilation.
“We have decided to meet one last time at NCUI on 24th January to release the final draft”, said NCUI President Dileep Sanghani adding that the NCUI is the right place for finalizing a draft on national co-op policy.
In the Gurugram meeting, subcommittees placed their drafts which were discussed threadbare by the Panel. “It soon emerged that we need to improve our draft by incorporating the views expressed by the members”, said Sanghani giving details of what happened during the NCP’s fifth meeting at Gurugram.
RBI Central Board Director Satish Marathe and Nafcub President Jyotindra Bhai Mehta were conspicuous by their absence.
It bears recalling that the government has set a deadline for the Panel to submit its report. So far five meetings have taken place at various locations including Pune, Mumbai, Delhi and Gurugram.
In the last meeting at Gurugram, the blueprint of the draft policy document was distributed among the members for their suggestions. Now, incorporating their views calls for one more meeting.
The committee consists of 47 members drawn from several sectors of the co-op business model from across states. The Panel has to work out a cooperative policy which can be uniformly applied to states. Since cooperation is a state subject, the challenge for formulating a policy acceptable to all is no easy task.
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.
The conveners include NCUI President Dileepbhai Sanghani, National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories MD Prakash Naiknavare, M P Tangrila, RBI Central Board Director Satish Marathe, Anoop Kumar, B L Meena, Amul MD R S Sodhi, Praveen Reddy, Y Dongre, Dr C Pitchai, Maninder Singh, Nita Kejriwal, Dr Umakant Dash, HK Mishra, Dr Sukhpal Singh and the Nabard Chairman.
The cooperative policy is divided into eight themes including Introduction, Current States and Strategies for growth and development, Structural reforms and governance framework, cooperatives as vibrant entities, training, continuing education, research, knowledge dissemination, accelerating the cooperative movement, infrastructure, technology and innovations and Networks, convergence & collaborations.
