The Government of India has established a separate Ministry for Cooperation in order to promote and strengthen the cooperative societies at the grassroots level. While hectic work has begun at this new Ministry under the leadership of Amit Shah at an unprecedented pace and the success of cooperative society in some States as Gujarat, Maharashtra are being studied for replicating these models, various options need to be examined to ensure success and timely completion of the vision.

With the advent of technology, efforts are also being worked out to improve the technology infrastructure to enhance the efficiency of these societies in service delivery. Shah at a recent event on cooperatives announced that the Government proposes to set up more than 3 lakh cooperatives, preferably one in every panchayat, to strengthen the community ownership model for citizen empowerment and enhancing efficiency in service delivery.

What are the options available to achieve the same? First option is to improve the existing Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) and Large Area Multi-Purpose Societies (lAMPS) and other societies; build capacity, enhance business opportunities, support in technology and management, besides improving the members’ involvement.

This will require an active participation of all the State Governments and co-operative functionaries at every level. The Government of India proposes to get this supported by NABARD, which at the State level has built up some relations with State Governments and will be able to get the adequate support for the same.

Currently there are more than one lakh PACS and LAMPS in various States --- on an average one society catering to the need of about six villages. They perform various functions such as operating ration shops, procurement centres for crops for State agencies and supply of essential and other commodities to its members.

Governance structure of these PACS and LAMPS need significant improvement, but it is true that these societies can transform the life of citizen in rural India by meeting almost all the requirements of the family besides supporting the Government in providing an effective and efficient outlet to address the concern of rural citizens.

The Vaidyanathan Committee report for Restructuring Rural credit institutions in 2004 made significant recommendation for improvement in the quality of services, governance, computerisation, etc, for PACS and LAMPS. The Government of India also allocated Rs 15,000 crore for the revival of these institutions.

However, there has not been any significant improvement in performance, health of these grassroots level cooperatives. With the formation of a separate Ministry, first time a sincere and sustainable long-term approach is being designed to strengthen the cooperatives in rural India. Thus, the strengthening and improving the existing PACS/LAMPS will continue to be challenging keeping in view the earlier attempts made for the same. The experience shows that the constraints are not of intent or of monetary resources but of the strategy and approach.

Another option for the Government is to convert the existing CSC (presently more than 4 lakh in rural areas) into cooperatives. Recently in his address to the nation on Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the entrepreneurship skills of the CSC village level entrepreneur (VLEs), especially in rural India. These CSCs are delivering G2C and B2C services to citizen. They are helping them getting benefit of all Government schemes and programmes. Almost every section of the society is being provided support by the CSC — old, infirm (pension, tele medicine), women (education and skilling), farmers (supply of inputs, tele agriculture), youth (competitive exam, employment opportunity), children (Bal Vidhyalya). Besides, the CSC is also supplying the products of various companies as well as helping local SHG sell their produce. The CSC functioning is what the Government envisage for the co-operatives in every panchayat.

As the framework for service delivery and support already exist with CSC, conversion of them to cooperative will serve the purpose of Government to set up 3 lakh societies. As these CSC already have the computing infra, the Government will save substantial cost. What is, however, required is to train and build the capacity of the CSC for making him/her understand the ethos and culture of cooperatives. The CSC has to make every beneficiary/customer as member, and it has to become truly a “Community Service Centre”, operated and managed by the community.

With increase in penetration of broadband through BharatNet, Fintech instrument like UPI and formation of Farmer Produce Organisation (FPO), these CSC can truly empower communities, enhance their income, serve as aggregator of demand and supplies thereby meeting last mile logistic requirements for farm produce as well as products of large companies who want to access rural markets.

The business model of CSC is already designed to technology usage and meeting the emerging aspirations of the community and therefore will be sustainable.

The CSC is working with Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand to revive and strengthen the PACS and LAMPS with limited success as only the service delivery is being enhanced, however the governing structure remain the same.

In Tamil Nadu, there are 4,474 Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies, however, more than 4,000 Primary Agriculture Cooperative Credit Society (PACCS) has CSCs in the rural areas of the State.

Besides delivering other services, these PACCS are also delivering the CSC services thereby enhancing their acceptance in the community and improving the financial condition.

Similarly, out of 4,400 LAMPS and PACS operating in Jharkhand, 537 LAMPS and PACS having ICT infrastructure were initially selected by the Cooperative Department, Government of Jharkhand, for their working as CSCs. CSC’s vision behind this collaboration is to empower more members of rural community because on an average, one society consists of 500 members.

However, the objective of LAMPS and PACS having CSC services is to enhance bouquet of services to their members and meet almost all their requirements. In the first stage, services like DigiPay (AEPS), e-Shram Services, CSC Grameen e-Store, CSC Agri Services, all PM Schemes (PMKMY, PMKISAN, PMSYM, PMJAY, etc) and various other Digital Seva Services of CSCs are being provided by the LAMPS and PACS.

Banking Correspondence Services, CSC WiFiChoupal, Aadhar service, etc, will also be delivered to ensure the doorstep delivery of services by high-speed internet to rural community.

Department of cooperation, Government of Jharkhand, is providing IT infrastructure like laptop, power backup and printer for the smooth operation and delivery of services. These associations are, however, for strengthening the service delivery of the existing LAMPS /PACCS and have limited success in view of the Governing structure remaining the same. This does not fulfil the Government vision of promoting an inclusive ownership societies model.

It is time to redesign and relook at the relationship.

The option to convert all the CSC into cooperative in view of the ability to serve the community effectively and efficiently appears to be more appropriate in view of the complexity of improving the existing PACS /LAMPS.

This will also support in Government vision of setting up 3 lakh cooperative in rural India within defined time frame. Digital India objective of promoting digitally inclusive societies will also be fulfilled. This model will promote Gram Swaraj and Atmanirbhar Bharat in its true sense.

(The writer is former Managing Director, Common Service Centres)