The assurance to this effect was given by Prime Minister Deve Gowda and planning commission deputy chairman Madhu Dandavate to the Cooperative Initiative Panel (CIP), a pressure group campaigning for the autonomy and democratisation of the cooperative sector.
The panel, consisting of former Union minister Mohan Dharia, former planning commission member L C Jain and National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) chairman V Kurien, met Gowda and Dandavate here yesterday. They submitted a memorandum demanding remodelling of the country's cooperative structure on the lines of the recommendations of the Choudhary Brahm Perkash committee. It had recommended complete freedom of the cooperatives from the stranglehold of the registrar of cooperatives and bureaucracy.
The panel also met agriculture minister Chaturanan Mishra and law minister Ramakant Khalap, urging them to expedite finalisation of the draft of the new Multi-state Cooperative Act (Amendment) Bill.
Briefing newspersons, the members of the panel said they received good response from the Prime Minister and all the ministers they met.
Even while expressing his inability to bring the amendment bill in the current session of Parliament, Deve Gowda assured them that this would be done in the winter session.
Dharia and Jain criticised the treatment meted out to the cooperative sector in the post-economic reforms era.
More From This Section
Not a single measure had been taken in the past five years to strengthen this sector which was vital to ensure economic emanicipation of the rural poor, they said. Kurien said the cooperatives did not want freedom without responsibility.
If they did anything wrong, they should be punished under the ordinary laws of the land.
The memorandum called for adoption of a national policy on cooperatives, making them autonomous, member-owned and controlled business enterprises. The government should withdraw its equity in cooperatives either through redemption or conversion into grants.
It also demanded that the government should stop appointing board chairpersons and directors to national level cooperatives and urged it to withdraw all government officers from management positions in these organisations.