I C Naik
A million dollar idea for a political party to reach to the grass root level has been mooted by no less than the government’s key policymaker C. Rangarajan, who heads the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime minister.
It is up to the parties to use this vehicle making it run for the people by the people in a total opposite manner or rather by putting in practice the principle enshrined in Art 43B of our Constitution.
When a politician associates patronizes a cooperative people do not have a doubt of it falling in to economic disaster example the Urban Cooperative Banks. So a challenge and vast opportunity here is to let it run on these principles in a manner convincing to the masses. The 43B principle is “voluntary formation, autonomous functioning, democratic control and professional management of co-operative societies “.
Although the idea seems to be to rope in in cooperative entities to set up standalone stores to sell vegetables and other food products across the country a fresh start making street vegetable vendors to become founder members to register a retail food cooperative with infrastructure provided by a State level federation of such cooperatives will establish its credibility much faster. Let a million dollar idea be not wasted by roping in existing cooperatives which are already under the clout of one or other political party.
The race to tackle the inflation problem, identified as one of the factors for the rout of the Congress in the recent state elections, has reportedly gathered momentum in the run-up to the 2014 national polls. Double digit food inflation and spiraling prices of vegetables have hurt households across the spectrum and triggered anger and unease among voters.
The idea of a “government organized initiative in cooperatives is an idea which is meant to be flopped” going by the experience so far and Congress jumping in is boune to meet with the same fate as it happened in elections.
“We should create a network of retail outlets in our country and these networks should focus on a limited number of commodities. I think that will have a salutary effect on the market prices,” Rangarajan reportedly told a leading daily. “The cooperative institution is the most ideal for it. And what we should focus on is not cooperative retail outlets catering to a very large number of commodities… I think that is not what is required. Actually the focus has to be on perishables, certain kinds of grain, certain kinds of dal,” he added.
The idea is at a preliminary stage and would require massive cooperation. Building the infrastructure to support the initiative would also be an enormous task. The former RBI governor and a veteran policy maker said these retail outlets should be modelled on the lines of Apna Bazaar, Kamdhenu stores or Mother Diary’s Safal initiative but should be implemented through cooperatives. He said “If we focus on major towns in our country, then it will have a moderating impact,” he said, adding that states must play their part in containing prices and promote the setting up of such cooperative institutions. One would wish cast he was forthright in pointing out the malice of interference of State machinery in throttling growth of cooperatives.
Reportedly the officers jumped in to frighten the idea itself. Reportedly the top government officials welcoming the idea raised several implementation issues that would need to be worked out. Several cooperative entities such as the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and the National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India have intervened in the market during crisis to help ease supplies and moderate prices.
But officials said massive storage facilities would be needed to implement the idea. The idea at the development stage itself gets killed. The need is to involve masses in a non-conventional manner and “We need to amend some aspects of the APMC Act to enable retailers and others to have direct access to farmers.
The mandi system is not necessarily working to the advantage of either the farmer or the consumer. Present marketing arrangement particularly relating to perishables is very archaic. We need to change it.