The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act to bring transparency and accountability in the sector as well as reform the electoral process.
Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also approved a `6,000 crore scheme known as Prime Minister’s Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE) to support infrastructure, industries and other livelihood projects in the Northeastern States.
Briefing media, I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022, seeks to amend the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002, for improving ease of doing business, bringing greater transparency and enhance governance. The Government plans to bring the amendment Bill in the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament, Thakur said.
At present, India has more than 1,500 multi-state cooperative societies spread across the country promoting economic and social betterment of their members based on the principles of self-help and mutual aid.
Giving major highlights of the Bill, Thakur said the Government has included provisions relating to representation of women and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe members on the board of multi-State cooperative societies.
The Bill will incorporate the provisions of the 97th Constitutional Amendment.
The amendments have been brought to reform the electoral process, strengthen monitoring mechanisms and enhance accountability. The Bill will also widen the composition of board and ensure financial discipline, besides enabling the multi-state cooperative societies to raise funds.
To improve the governance of multi-State cooperative societies, the Bill has specific provisions for setting up of Cooperative Election Authority, Cooperative Information Officer and Cooperative Ombudsman.
The election authority will ensure that elections are held in a fair, free and timely manner, which in turn will help reduce incidents of complaints and malpractices. There is a provision to debar offenders for three years to bring in more electoral discipline. The ombudsman will provide for a mechanism for redressal of member grievances in a structured fashion, while cooperative information officer will enhance transparency by providing members timely access to information.
Seeking to promote professional management, the Bill has provisions for bringing in co-opted directors with experience in the field of banking, management, cooperative management and finance. The directors having specialisation in any field relating to the objects and activities undertaken by such multi-State co-operative society can be represented on the board.
The new scheme PM-DevINE to be implemented during the remaining four years of the 15th Finance Commission from 2022-23 to 2025-26, is a 100 per cent Central Government-funded plan and will be administered by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), an official statement said.
Efforts will be made to complete the PM-DevINE projects by 2025-26 so that there are no committed liabilities beyond this year and this implies front-loading of the sanctions under the scheme in 2022-23 and 2023-24 primarily, it said.
While expenditure would continue to be incurred during 2024-25 and 2025-26, focused attention will be given to completing the sanctioned PM-DevINE projects. The PM-DevINE will lead to the creation of infrastructure, support industries, social development projects and create livelihood activities for youth and women, thus leading to employment generation, the statement added.