Some good news from the Mamata Banerjee’s govt of West Bengal at last. The state government appears serious in cleansing the cooperative sector in the state of criminal tendencies and undemocratic norms on the lines of Nitish Kumar.
Towards this end, the govt. has formed a dedicated election commission for the cooperative sector. The move has been widely hailed as a great step towards reorganization of the cooperative sector in accord with the democratic principles.
Readers can recall that Nitish govt in Bihar set up Election Authority in 2008 which conducted fair elections of primary agriculture credit cooperative societies. This has resulted into creation of a viable network of PACS which is proving handy in all rural-centric schemes.
More than a thousand primary cooperative societies will soon be holding elections to elect their managing bodies.
There are thousands of cooperative societies registered in West Bengal. There are also more than five thousand primary agricultural societies and nearly a score of district central cooperative banks.
Sources say, most of the cooperative institutions in the state are still being managed undemocratically by the communists and the present govt. is determined to weed out them out.