Hurling barbs at the newly elected chairman of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Federation (UCF) Brijbhushan Gairola, former chairman of UCF Pramod Kumar Singh said, “Gairola is new to cooperative and he doesn’t know anything about cooperatives. He has been made the chairman of UCF because he is close to chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. Gairola is an RSS man”, Singh said.
“The UCF was started with a share capital of Rs 11,000. During my tenure I set up an empire through which an annual income of about 12 lak is being generated. Today the market value of the new spacious building of UCF is more than Rs 70 core”, Singh said while denying charges made by Gairola against him including he did nothing for the federation.
Singh further recounted, “The business of the federation is in decline and the federation is able to pay allowances and salaries of its staff members only with the fund earned as rent. It is the effort of our team that keeps the federation afloat”, he said.
”During my tenure we did the repairing work of several godowns of UCF. There was no Pardeshik Cooperative Union in the state till the congress government came to power. The BJP government has made PCU just an instrument of self-aggrandizement for the BJP party members”, Singh who is a prominent Congress leader alleged.
”As , for winning the election of cooperatives by Bhartiya Janata Party, their leaders have registered more than 500 cooperative societies in less than one and a half year. These societies are not just doing anything”, Singh claimed.
He further said, it is clearly mentioned in recommendations of the Vaidyanathan Committee to save cooperatives from pervasive control of state governments but leaders of the BJP government are openly doing the opposite of it.
Meanwhile the newly elected Chairman has avowed to reorganize the federation and said, “Since my innings is of five years we would make a road map for taking UCF to newer heights. We are planning to diversify the business of UCF like production of apple juice etc. We will setup a processing plant and upgrade the cooperative drug factory in Ranikhet (Almora) and Uttarakhand Medicines & Pharmaceuticals in Halduchaur, Haldwani”, Gairala has said.
It bears recall that last month the state government had appointed Brijbhushan Gairola as the chairman of the administrative board of UCF which had earlier been headed by NCUI-IFFCO Director Pramod Kumar Singh. However, this time round Singh did not participate in the UCF election.
Readers would note that Brijbhushan Gairola and Matwar Singh Rawat were earlier declared elected unopposed as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Federation popularly known as UCF.
Now the election of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Bank and Pradeshik Cooperative Union will be held and the yearlong procedure of holding cooperative elections will come to an end.
It bears recall that UCF has seen many ups and downs after the BJP assumed office in the state. Soon after the victory in the assembly polls, the BJP govt removed Pramod Kumar Singh-an avowed Congressman from the Chairmanship of Uttarakhand State Cooperative Federation (UCF) and put Ghanshyam Nautiyal as the new chairman of the apex co-op body.