Cooperative movement in India

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The cooperative movement in India plays a crucial role in the agricultural sector, banking and housing. Many cooperative societies, particularly in rural areas, increase political participation and are used as a stepping stone by aspiring politicians.[citation needed]

History[]

Government initiative[]

Ministry of Co-operation[]

National level Ministry of Co-operation was established to develop the co-operative societies in India to empower the small scale producers and entrepreneurs. Several states also have own state level Ministry of Co-operation and/or statutory boards to develop co-operatives in their respective states.

Legal framework[]

Co-operative Societies Act (1912) provides the legal framework.

Policy and strategic intervention[]

National Policy on Cooperatives was formulated in 2002 to develop the cooperative societies sector.[1]

Agriculture[]

See also: Agriculture in India

The country has networks of cooperatives at the local, regional, state and national levels that assist in agricultural marketing. The commodities that are mostly handled are food grains, jute, cotton, sugar, milk, fruit and nuts.[2] Support by the state government led to more than 25,000 cooperatives being set up by 1990s in Maharashtra.[3]


Agri product marketing cooperatives[]

See also: Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad

As with sugar, cooperatives play a significant part in the overall marketing of fruit and vegetables in India. Since the 1980s, the amount of produce handled by Cooperative societies has increased exponentially. Common fruit and vegetables marketed by the societies include bananas, mangoes, grapes, onions and many others.[4] ChangthangiPashmina which remained as the monopoly of few traders is also moving towards fairness in production and supply chains with source region Ladakh's cooperative .[5]

Dairy[]

See also: Dairy in India and Amul
Saraswani milk producing co-operative society milk collection center in Gujarat. Collected milk is sent to Amul for further processing and distribution.

Dairy farming based on the Amul Pattern, with a single marketing cooperative, is India's largest self-sustaining industry and its largest rural employment provider. Successful implementation of the Amul model has made India the world's largest milk producer.[6] Here small, marginal farmers with a couple or so heads of milch cattle queue up twice daily to pour milk from their small containers into the village union collection points. The milk after processing at the district unions is then marketed by the state cooperative federation nationally under the Amul brand name, India's largest food brand. With the Anand pattern three-fourths of the price paid by the mainly urban consumers goes into the hands of millions of small dairy farmers, who are the owners of the brand and the cooperative. The cooperative hires professionals for their expertise and skills and uses hi-tech research labs and modern processing plants & transport cold-chains, to ensure quality of their produce and value-add to the milk.[7]

Sugar[]

Sugarcane weighing at a cooperative sugar mill in Maharashtra, India.

Most of the sugar production in India takes place at mills owned by local cooperative societies. The members of the society include all farmers, small and large, supplying sugarcane to the mill.[8] Over the last fifty years, the local sugar mills have played a crucial part in encouraging political participation and as a stepping stone for aspiring politicians.[9] This is particularly true in the state of Maharashtra where a large number of politicians belonging to the Congress party or NCP had ties to sugar cooperatives from their local area and has created a symbiotic relationship between the sugar factories and local politics.[10] However, the policy of "profits for the company but losses to be borne by the government", has made a number of these operations inefficient.[11]

Banking and rural credit[]

See also: Banking in India

Cooperatives also play a great part in banking. Cooperative banks in India serve both the rural and urban societies. Just like the sugar companies, these institutions serve as the power base for local politicians.[3]

Housing societies[]

See also: Housing society

Widely known as Cooperative Housing Societies, these housing alternatives are established to help people with limited income to construct houses at reasonable costs.

The function of housing cooperatives varies based on geographical and cultural context. Compared to Western and European understandings of housing cooperatives, that primarily views cooperatives as equating to collective ownership, India differs from these conceptions about how cooperative housing societies operate.

Mumbai and Chennai are two areas that set the present for cooperative movements in India, influencing development in other major cities such as New Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kolkata.[12] Despite the cooperative success and influence of these cities' in other regions, Mumbai and Chennai differ from the cities of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, known as areas in India that demonstrate a long history of cooperative efforts.[13]

3 types of housing cooperatives[]

There are three distinct types of housing cooperatives in India approved by each state, through the Cooperative Societies Act, based on the co-op housing objectives and functionality.[14] The categories of cooperative housing are tenure, finance, and building co-operatives.[15] The classifications of these cooperatives vary across states, and its approval is not exclusive to each state.[16]

Ganapati (2008) defines these categories as the following:

"In Tenure co-operatives, members collectively own and manage housing, similar to co-operative housing in the Western countries. Finance co-operatives provide loans for new construction or housing repairs to members. Building co-operatives construct housing for their members, but they may also be involved in land development"[15]

Multi State cooperative Society[]

Any society that is formed with the object of the economic and social improvement of its members by way of self-help groups with mutual aid, but is registered in more than one state is known as Multi State Cooperative Society.

Khadi cooperatives[]

See also: Khadi and Khadi and Village Industries Commission

As of 2009, there were 5,600 registered institutions and 30,138 Cooperative societies for Khadi[17] which employs nearly 95 lakh (9.5 million) people.[18] Khadi and Village Industries Commission uses government provided funds to implement its programs either directly - through its 29[19] state offices, by directly funding Khadi and Village institutions and co-operatives, or indirectly through 33[20] Khadi and Village Industries Boards, which are statutory bodies formed by the state governments within India, set up for the purpose of promoting Khadi and Village Industries in their respective states. The Khadi and Village Industries Boards, in turn, fund Khadi and Village Institutions/Co-operatives/Entrepreneurs.

Small and micro industries corporation[]

See also: National Small Industries Corporation; Small Industries Development Bank of India; and Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

List Of major cooperative societies in India[]

Amul[]

Amul cooperative from India is the world's largest producer of milk, this was the achievement of White Revolution in India, which was spurred by Amul. It is an Indian dairy cooperative society. Amul is located in Anand, Gujarat. Amul was established in 1946. Dr Verghese Kurien is known as the father of White Revolution. He was the chairman of GCMMF for more than 30 years. Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF) is the cooperative body which manages the brand of Amul. GCMMF is currently owned by apex body of 13 District Milk Unions, (3.6 million) milk producers in Gujarat, spread across 13,000 villages of Gujarat.

Karnataka Milk Federation[]

After Amul, Karnataka Milk Federation is the second largest milk co-operative in India. It is a federation of milk producers association working on cooperative principles. In 1974, KMF was founded as Karnataka Dairy Development Corporation (KDDC) to implement a dairy development project. This project was run by the World Bank. Procurement of milk is done from Primary Dairy Cooperative Societies (DCS) by Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) has 14 milk unions throughout the Karnataka State which procure and distribute milk to the consumers. The milk is marketed under the brand name Nandini.

Horticultural Producers’ Cooperative Marketing and Processing Society (HOPCOMS)[]

It is a farmers’ society founded in 1965. HOPCOMS comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of horticulture, Government of Karnataka.It was founded with the objective of direct marketing of farm products. HOPCOMS is headquartered in Bengaluru. HOPCOMS is spread across districts of Bangalore Rural, Bangalore Urban, Mysuru, Mandya, Chikkaballapura, Ramanagar of Karnataka. The operations of HOPCOMS are three-fold: distribution, storage and procurement.

Indian Coffee House[]

It is run by a series of worker co-operative societies. It is a chain of restaurants. The India Coffee House chain was started by the Coffee Cess Committee in 1936, The idea of Coffee House was formed since native Indians were not allowed into Coffee Houses which were mainly allowed only for Europeans. The first outlet of Indian Coffee House was opened in Bombay. By 1940's there were 50 coffee houses across the country. To run the coffee houses in India, there are 13 co-operative societies.

Southern Green Farming And Marketing Multi State Cooperative Society Limited(Farmfed)[]

It is a Agriculture society founded in 2008. Operational area of these society is Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Society's mission is Socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable community development. Society help the farmers to get a reasonable return for their efforts in the soil by making them aware of various advanced techniques and methods of cultivation without harming the fundamental being of nature.

Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO)[]

It is headquartered in New Delhi. IFFCO is the biggest cooperative in the world by turnover on GDP per capita. It was founded on 3 November 1967 IFFCO is India's largest fertiliser manufacturer. IFFCO reaches over 50 million Indian farmers, with around 35,000 member cooperatives.[15]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ National Policy on Cooperatives, Govt of India, accessed 16 Aug 2021.
  2. ^ Vadivelu, A. and Kiran, B.R., 2013. Problems and prospects of agricultural marketing in India: An overview. International journal of agricultural and food science, 3(3), pp.108-118.[1]
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Dahiwale, S. M. (February 11, 1995). "Consolidation of Maratha Dominance in Maharashtra". Economic and Political Weekly. 30 (6): 340–342. JSTOR 4402382.
  4. ^ K. V. Subrahmanyam; T. M. Gajanana (2000). Cooperative Marketing of Fruits and Vegetables in India. Concept Publishing Company. pp. 45–60. ISBN 978-81-7022-820-2.
  5. ^ "The farm-to-fashion collective empowering women weavers in Ladakh". Elle India.
  6. ^ Scholten, Bruce A. (2010). India's white revolution Operation Flood, food aid and development. London: Tauris Academic Studies. p. 10. ISBN 9781441676580.
  7. ^ Damodaran, H., 2008. Patidars and Marathas. In India's New Capitalists (pp. 216-258). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
  8. ^ "National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Limited". Coopsugar.org. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
  9. ^ Patil, Anil (9 July 2007). "Sugar cooperatives on death bed in Maharashtra". Rediff India. Retrieved 27 December 2011.
  10. ^ Baviskar, edited by B.S.; Mathew, George (2008). Inclusion and exclusion in local governance : field studies from rural India. London: SAGE. p. 319. ISBN 9788178298603.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  11. ^ Dahiwale, S. M. (February 11, 1995). "Consolidation of Maratha Dominance in Maharashtra". Economic and Political Weekly. 30 (6): 340–342. JSTOR 4402382.
  12. ^ Ganapati, Sukumar. 2008. "A Century of Differential Evolution of Housing Co-operatives in Mumbai and Chennai." Housing Studies 23(3):407-8
  13. ^ Ganapati, Sukumar. 2008. "A Century of Differential Evolution of Housing Co-operatives in Mumbai and Chennai." Housing Studies 23(3):408
  14. ^ "Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act, 2002". India Code. Retrieved 2021-03-04.
  15. ^ Jump up to: a b c Ganapati, Sukumar. 2008. "A Century of Differential Evolution of Housing Co-operatives in Mumbai and Chennai." Housing Studies 23(3):406
  16. ^ Ganapati, Sukumar. 2008. "A Century of Differential Evolution of Housing Co-Operatives in Mumbai and Chennai." Housing Studies 23(3):405
  17. ^ About us - Delhi Khadhi and Village industries Board Archived 25 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine Government of Delhi.
  18. ^ - Page 67 Archived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
  19. ^ Page - 65 Archived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
  20. ^ Page - 66 Archived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

External links[]

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