After several years of struggle, cooperative giant Kribhco has finally attained liberation from govt control. That is to say the fertiliser company would now be under the control of nearly fifteen thousand cooperative societies in the country and have complete freedom to decide about its affairs.
This freedom from govt control has made Kribhco level with Iffco in legal terms.
Kribhco had been struggling to get independence but its efforts did not succeed. Talking to Indian Cooperative a relived Kribhco’s Vice-Chairman Chandra Pal Singh Yadav said the effort has finally paid off.
“We have added around 5 thousand cooperatives in the Kribhco fold in last two months. Most of them-around 3000 are primary cooperatives thereby energizing the cooperative behemoth in a big way”, added Vice-Chairman, Mr Yadav.
“Whatever money we received from these cooperatives were used to return government share thereby making us a free bird”, said a jubilant Mr Yadav.
“You will watch how we grow now with several projects in the pipeline as government red tape made us tread too slow in past”, he concluded.
Kribhco achieved its dream of freedom by moving cautiously. Over the years continuous redeeming government shares by Kribhco reduced the government stake to 48.35% from 67.73% and finally in 2005 to zero dealing a shock to the govt.
On the intervention of the department of fertilisers, Kribhco returned some of government shares and assured the department that the government in the company will not be brought down below 26%, unless more cooperatives are interested to participate as shareholders.
