'Cooperative policy needs to be made suitable for society'

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, Oct. 28: Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, Balram Adhikari, has expressed his commitment to gradually solving the challenges in the cooperative sector and establishing it as a strong pillar of the national economy by connecting the nation's income generation with the people. 

"Cooperatives are run by the old policy while Nepal's cooperatives cannot run by copying the foreign styles. It is necessary to create a policy that suits our society, consciousness and geography," he said while speaking at a Dialogue on Cooperatives organised by the National Cooperative Federation (NCF) in Lalitpur on Sunday. 

There are problems in cooperatives because no efforts were made to control wrongdoers by enacting rules and procedures on time, he said. 

He said that there was a discussion to create a new regulatory body for the cooperatives as it was necessary to solve the challenges that emerged in the sector. 

Likewise, he informed that a circular was sent to the Nepal Rastra Bank to include cooperatives in the Credit Information Bureau of Nepal and the Deposit and Credit Guarantee Fund that is currently in place for banks and financial institutions.

According to Minister Adhikari, it seems that the campaign itself is in confusion regarding the creation of the second-tier regulatory body. He urged everyone to come together on how to go about it. 

He expressed his concerns that the cooperative promotion fund was to be returned to the cooperative itself, but the cooperatives had stopped depositing funds in it. Minister Adhikari said that problems in cooperatives were created because there were no statistics on cooperatives even with the government. 

"The Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation has asked all concerned bodies to collect the data and send it to the ministry," he said. 

President of the NCF, Om Devi Malla, said that a campaign to enter a new phase of cooperatives has started by establishing a common opinion between the government and the cooperatives through policy dialogue.

Likewise, former Finance Secretary, Rameshwar Khanal, said that cooperatives should strengthen self-regulation rather than looking for an external regulatory body. He said that the federation should lead the cooperative at the highest level.

He said that off-site and on-site regulations could be made effective. 

Shriman Kumar Gautam, Chairman of the Cooperative Management Committee, informed that the depositors have demanded Rs. 40 billion from 19 troubled cooperatives and the savings of two organisations have been returned to the depositors.