ICA Board member comes to NCUI saying “Thanks”

Young and successful she came calling to say thank you to National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) for what she is today. Om Devi Malla who annexed a seat on the board of ICA last year-the first by anyone from Nepal in more than 100 year long history of ICA- is a NCUI-NCCE Co-op Diploma holder from the batch 2005.

“I have come here to say them thanks as they instilled in me co-op values and skill which saw me first get into Nepal’s Parliament and now on the Board of International Cooperative Alliance”, Malla said to this correspondent during a chance meeting at the NCUI headquarters in Delhi.

“Anyone doing Diploma from NCCE cannot go wrong”, Malla said boosting the morale of V K Dubey, incumbent Director of NCCE and the Chief Executive of NCUI N Satyanarayan who were present during the informal interview.

And mind you, Mala is no ordinary cooperator. She was nominated to Nepalese Parliament due to her untiring contributions to the cooperative movement and once in Parliament she blazed a trail in overhauling co-operative acts and putting them in sync with time- a feat cooperative history of Nepal would ever barely forget.

Her dynamism could be understood by the simple fact that while it took IFFFO’s candidate Aditya Yadav to use the persuasive skills of legendary Dr US Awasthi to win, here was a simple lady with little backing either from her country’s cooperative fraternity or political establishment and yet she made it to the ICA Board.

It bears recall that while Badal-who is held as the tallest cooperator from Nepal is from the Communist Party, Om Malla is from the Congress Party. While Badal is the Chairman of the apex body NCF, she is the Vice-Chairman.

Malla is credited with initiating many things in Nepal’s cooperative movement. But most of all, her success in ensuring 33% reservation for women in the co-operative jobs is hailed universally. She is also the one who made the govt of the day accept the fact that co-operative be counted as one of the pillars of Nepalese economy-after govt and private sectors.

”Our country has 63 lakh cooperatives and we are focusing on mass and quality production in the cooperative sector”, said Mala who has already attended two board meetings of ICA and was preparing to go to the third slated later this month.

She also used the meeting for expressing her thanks to the Indian Cooperative for the extensive coverage of her elections to ICA Board. “You made a hero out of me”, she said referring to reports that appeared in these columns during ICA elections.