Breaking-free of the established tradition, the new Director of Vamnicom Dr K K Tripathy is meeting those whom he regards as partners in the task of furthering cooperative movement in the country and has met IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi and Fishcopfed Chairman T R Dora, to begin with.
Tripathy claims he is trying to build relations with National Cooperative Federations and has had a series of meetings with IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi and Fishcopfed Chairman and MD. Tripathy is also all praise for Upma Srivastava, Additional Secretary in the Ministry who gave him the idea of interacting with institutions and leading individuals associated with the cooperative sector.
Tripathy says ”after joining, I have met officials of NABARD and they told me that they come to Vamnicom for getting their personnel trained. Meanwhile, I have reshuffled employees according to their capability changing the criteria for training session. I am also planning to develop a strong feedback mechanism, Tripathy adds.
Pune based cooperative management institute Vamnicom which is regraded as the best in the field in the country has a new Director in Dr K K Tripathy, IES. Young and energetic Tripathy is brimming with ideas and plans to take the institution to newer heights.
But first of all, Tripathy said, he was looking forward to repairing the image of the institution that had got dented in the wake of controversies between the former director Mr Sanjib Patjoshi, IPS and one of the faculty members.
“The day I joined as the director of Vamnicom, I called a meeting of faculty members and urged them all to forget about what happened in the past. I also asked them to share ideas on how to develop the institution”, said Tripathy to this correspondent during his interview in Shastri Bhawan, Delhi where he had come for a meeting with Ministry officials.
Readers would recall that there were serious public disagreements between former director Sanjeeb Patjoshi and one of the faculty member P. Chattopadhayay. The incident had taken a toll on the institution.
Tripathy –who had studied at IIT Delhi said, “In former days, Vamnicom used to publish calendars of its annual plans but only 10 percent of them would be followed up. So, I told the faculty members if they did not carry them out why did they formulate plans?
I was surprised to find out that the prestigious Institute would spend whole of its energy and resources in organizing training programme for the credit cooperative sector alone”, he informed.
“Since I have done my PhD from IIT Delhi, I thought I could try to make this institution as well a center of excellence. In my tenure of six months, I have installed Wifi facilities at a cost of about Rs 10 lakh. I am also planning to install E-Resources facility within the next two months, he underlined.
“I will also ensure transparency in our functioning for which I have mooted the proposal for E-office. In this connection, I have talked to NIC DDG Amitabh Deb but the matter is still pending before the NCCT Committee”, Tripathy said.
While answering the quires related to the problems being faced by him in the wake of court cases pending against former officials, he said “I am not facing any problems. This is their personal matter and this does not merit my interference. However, if they will create any problems, strict action will be taken against them as per law”, he argued.
”We have about 130 students in the Agri Business Management Course and we offer 100 percent placement. Our aim is to build the capacity of rural cooperatives as also raise the quality of our training programmes” Tripathy claims.
Tripathy started his carrier as an assistant director in the cooperative credit section of the Ministry of Rural Development and commands a vast knowledge about the credit sector. As cooperative credit is part of rural credit, he feels at ease with the cooperative sector.
According to Tripathy, following liberalization of the country’s economy, the share of rural credit in the cooperative sector has dwindled.
