NCUI’s Education Fund Committee which met on Monday at the former’s headquarters in Delhi, approved a budget of Rs 12 crore for building an International Convention Centre, as had been reported earlier in these columns.
The Convention Centre is going to be world class aimed at showcasing India’s achievements so far as the cooperative movement is concerned. “We, after all represent the strongest cooperative movement in the world and we must also have something to be proud of”, said an NCUI official.
The Committee approved the budget for the next financial year and earmarked Rs 17 crore for cooperative training purposes across the country, among other things. The approval of the new building in Noida has been a cause for jubilation among the NCUI employees, as some of them shared with this reporter.
It bears recall that the apex body of cooperatives NCUI is planning to come up with a Centre of excellence for co-operative training on a piece of land it took on lease from Noida Authority. The apex co-op body may lose the land if it fails to start construction on the land given the Noida Authority’s tough norms.
The Monday meeting was presided over by Education Fund Committee Chairman Chandra Pal Singh Yadav and among the six members on its board, only absentees were Central registrar Ashish Bhutani and Vamnicom Director KK Tripathy. B. Pradhan, Additional Secretary & Financial Advisor represented the Ministry. Other members
Additional Secretary Pradhan is also believed to have vigorously pitched for the International Convention Centre and reportedly committed the govt support to the plan. He also promised that the proposed printing press which will be established along with the Convention Centre would meet the govt printing requirements.
“It would be cooperators’ own printing press where one can come and ask to get his printing job done first and talk about the rates and charges later, an experience one cannot have in the general market, said NCUI CE N Satyanarayan while extolling the virtues of having a cooperative printing press.
The Committee also felt that more fund should be disbursed for cooperative training across the country with the Additional Secretary Pradhan laying emphasis on this. Among other co-op organizations, Fishcofed was granted Rs 7 lakh for the training purposes in the current year.