State Cooperative Minister Yashpal Arya stressed on strengthening the cooperatives by providing support to to those who are involved in the sector. A meeting was convened at his behest on Wednesday to deliberate on a string of amendments proposed in the State Cooperative Committee Act. The amendments would have to be passed in the Vidhan Sabha to become enforceable.
The 97th Amendment Act-2011 para IX-B cooperative committee section 243 ZJ(1) says, the board would have members as per the decision of the state Assembly but it would not exceed 21. It was decided to reserve four seats in each of the cooperative committees which presently comprises five to seven members. It was also recommended that one would be kept reserved for SC/ST, one for OBC and two for women. However, viewing that such volume of reservation was not feasible, given the existing number of the members, it was decided that the number of the members would be increased to nine.
In course of the meeting, Nainital District cooperative bank chairman Rajendra Singh Negi questioned the rationale of reserving so many seats when the number of the members was five to seven. He called for a review of the proposed quota arrangement. The proposal for reservation came from the State Cooperative Association limited chairman Pramod Kumar Singh. He said that under the provision, four seats in cooperative management committee should be reserved under the following break-up- one for SC/ST, two for women and one for OBC.
After the matter broached thus was deliberated in details it was unanimously decided that the number of members of such committees would be increased to nine to accommodate the proposed volume of reservation. Another point upon which consensus was reached was that such committees would have five year term in place of the previous tenure of three years.
They suggested constitution of an authority which would be entrusted with the task of supervising election of cooperative committees, issuing directives and preparing voter list as well. It was revealed during the meeting that Cooperative Election Authority is already existing at the State level. Now, it has been decided to rechristen it as Uttarakhand Cooperative Election Commission to lend it a separate identity.
The meeting also decided to go for internal audit system which will audit internal expense of the committees. Previously, the auditor was nominated by the State Government- a matter that was squeezing the committees’ budgets. They also decided to spend education fund over the training. A demand was raised to curtail the power of the administrator.
State cooperative bank chairman Sanjiv Kumar Arya, addition secretary Pradeep Singh Rawat, state chairman of cooperative committee Pramod Kumar Singh, Nainital District cooperative bank chairman Rajendra Singh Negi, Udham Singh Nagar district cooperative bank Chairman Subhash Behad, Dehradun district cooperative bank chairman Dr KS Rana, vice chairman of Uttarakhand Cooperative Silk Federation Abdul Razzak, State cooperative bank chairman Sanjay Kumar Arya, Uttarkhand housing chairman Upendra Choudhary, Almora Cooperative bank chairman Prashant Bhasedi and departmental officers were present at Wednesday’s meeting.