Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): To turn cooperative into a mass movement by overcoming various shortcomings, Madhya Pradesh government is all set to come up with a new Cooperative Policy Act. The proposed cooperative policy act intends to spread cooperative into new sectors.
The draft of the proposed cooperative policy act says that as of now, cooperative is limited to few sectors. Cooperative movement has not turned into a mass movement. In present time, many internal and structural deficiencies have also penetrated under cooperative and they need to be weeded out.
The act speaks about taking cooperative into new potential sectors such as tourism, event management, rural transportation, renewable energy, insurance, water distribution, rural industries, health services, education, service sector, electricity distribution, agriculture, animal husbandry, forest produce, cooperative agriculture equipment bank, etc.
Along with this, the proposed act also envisages creation of Public Cooperative Partnership (PCB) model, to promote start- up activities and innovation, creation of self employment in new potential areas. It also stresses on preparing comprehensive capacity building scheme for modernisation in cooperative sector and to develop PACS (Primary Agriculture Credit Society) as General Facility Centre.
As far as venturing into IT field is concerned, the policy speaks about expanding online services through the medium of district central cooperative banks. These services include Aadhaar authentication, Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), Direct Bank Transfer (DBT), etc.
A senior officer of the cooperative department said that through the medium of new policy, cooperative will be introduced in new fields such as tourism, IT and rural transportation. For instance, a group of public transport operators can form a society. If any person wants to visit certain tourist place then this society can offer vehicle ride to various tourism spots at reasonable rate. Likewise, under rural transport, a dedicated bus route will be planned on which buses registered under the cooperative society will be allowed to ply. This will help in generating jobs as well.
Cooperative commissioner Alok Singh told Free Press that the new Cooperative Act is being prepared under the leadership of cooperative minister Arvind Bhadoria. Public suggestions have been sought on the draft of the act. Madhya Pradesh will be the first state across India to have it.
