Sahakar Bharati national President Satish Marathe has bagged IFFCO’s top most cooperative award Sahakarita Ratna for the year 2015. Sahakar Bharati is the cooperative organ of right-wing political party BJP.
Announcing this IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi tweeted ”Happy to share that the #IFFCO board has chosen Mr. Satish Marathe from #Maharashtra for the Sahakarita Ratna Award for 2015.”
Another cooperator who bagged IFFCO’s Sahakarita Bandhu award is Mostafa Sardar from West Bengal.
IFFCO Sahakarita Ratna & Sahakarita Bandhu awards are conferred on individual eminent cooperators who have rendered selfless services to the furtherance and development of the cooperative movement.
The awards are conferred on annual basis and carry an amount of Rs five lakh each along with a citation. The awards are generally presented in a function convened at New Delhi on the occasion of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial IFFCO Lecture during Cooperative Week in November.
Sahakar Bharati’s President Satish Marathe is a fiercely independent minded man who does not hesitate in voicing opinions against his own govt. Indian Cooperative had recently received a mail from him in which he was critical of the RBI’s move to convert co-operative banks into commercial entities.
He is against some of the points in the proposed draft seeking to amend the MSCS Act 2002 and he has written to Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh opposing them. A copy of his letter is with Indian cooperative.
Earlier, the union budget passed this year had angered him so much that Indian cooperative had to front page a story titled ”Jaitley has disappointed co-op sector: Marathe”.
Such frank and open-minded cooperators are assets for the movement felt several cooperators talking to Indian Cooperative and welcomed IFFCO’s decision to honour Marathe.