Into thin air: 25pc of co-ops untraceable

KANCHANPUR, MAR 30

The Division Cooperative Office in Mahendranagar had recently dispatched its monitors to check on cooperatives registered in Kanchanpur and Dadeldhura districts, but they could not locate many of them.

Some cooperatives were found to exist only on paper kept in the pockets of the chairman or the secretary. The promoters of other cooperatives were found to have gone abroad for employment.

“We could not find 25 percent of the registered cooperatives,” said Ram Bahadur Khati, chief inspector of the Division Cooperative Office. “The officials of these cooperatives could not be traced either.”

In the last fiscal year, 84 cooperatives were found to be out of operation. The cooperative office has scrapped the licences of three such cooperatives.

Meanwhile, Khati said that a dozen cooperatives had not fulfilled their obligations like sending monthly progress reports to the Division Cooperative Office, conducting an audit by mid-October and holding annual general meetings by mid-January as per the Cooperative Act.

As of mid-February, there were 179 cooperatives registered in Dadeldhura and 371 in Kanchanpur , according to the cooperative office. More than half of the cooperatives registered in the two districts are associated with the agriculture sector. “Most of them have not done anything except purchasing chemical fertilizer from Agriculture Inputs Company,” said Khati.

Registering cooperatives has become a trend as it is easy to do so. As per the Cooperative Act, a group of 25 persons can form such an institution. Many cooperatives have been registered as per the act, but they disappear into thin air in a year.

According to Khati, people open cooperatives after being lured by various non-governmental organization (NGOs), and once they stop providing grants, the cooperatives also close.

President of the District Cooperative Association Tara Lama said that the Cooperative Act must be amended to address anomalies in the sector. The government has moved to make amendments to the laws.

“The current anomalies have appeared as people have been opening cooperatives without having knowledge about the sector,” said Lama.

Source: The Kathmandu Post