100th International Day of Cooperatives
International Cooperative Day is celebrated on the first Saturday of July. The day was started in the year 1923 by the International Cooperative Movement and the International Cooperative Alliance.
The theme of International Day of Cooperation 2022 is “Co-operation Builds a Better World”.
Co-operatives are people-centred enterprises. They are owned, controlled and operated by their members. These enterprises meet the common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations of the members.
They are voluntary organisations, they are autonomous locally, they work on the principle of self-help etc.
Advantages of Co-operative Societies
- They provide secure and productive employment,
- They have both social and economic objectives,
- These institutions are value and community based,
- They provide loans at cheap interest rates,
- They help in the production and utilization of social capital etc.
Key challenges:
- Not all geographic areas have equal access,
- There are flaws in their governance system,
- Lack of competition in cost, etc.
Cooperatives in India
- India has the largest number of cooperative movements in the world. There are three million global cooperatives around the world. Of these, there are 8.55 lakh cooperative societies (Amul, IFFCO etc.) in India. 191% cooperative societies are present in villages. About 13 crore people are directly connected with them.
- A co-operative society can be formed under the provisions of the Co-operative Societies Act, 1912.
- Article 43B and Part IXB were added to the Constitution by the 97th Constitutional Amendment Act for effective management of cooperative societies.
Initiatives taken to promote cooperatives
- The Ministry of Cooperation was formed in the year 2021.
- The Central Government has framed Model Bye-laws to enable Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) to diversify their core business.
- The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) has been set up to plan, promote, coordinate and finance cooperative development programmes.
- Co-operative societies have been allowed to register as ‘buyers’ on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform.
Source – The Hindu
