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Multistakeholder Consultation on Cooperatives in India: Performance and Challenges
While India's economy is continuously growing, it is not percolating below to boost the small & micro economy that addresses its socio-economic challenges. Having realized this fact, the Govt of India has decided to accelerate the economic growth by promoting cooperatives, which according to Mahatma Gandhi, is "necessary for the creation of a socialistic society and complete decentralization of power." Therefore, Cooperatives are seen as one of the alternatives through which India can realize the nation's dream of becoming an inclusive economy and realise the vision of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat. Cooperatives certainly have a futuristic role in fostering collectivism and preserving the social capital base of the country. Additionally, Cooperatives are the best instruments and channels to keep the spirit of collectivism and create decentralised economic growth engines, especially in rural India. An extensive network of cooperatives would assist in the creation and optimise utilization of the intrinsic social capital. The greater the social capital, the greater would be the opportunity for development. With this aim and objective, the Govt of India has very rightly created the Ministry of cooperation.
The revival of interest in cooperatives after creating the Ministry of Cooperation has initiated public consultations and dialogues. However, while much of these public discourses are required, developing a holistic understanding of the strengths and challenges to build the required critical mass that helps accelerate the moment becomes pertinent. It is also well accepted that though there are few successful cooperatives in the country, there is scope and opportunity for many more to reach a higher level of maturity and increase impact. Therefore, it becomes imperative to understand the challenges and undertake focused measures that can enable the transition for the country to benefit.
Whereas the government has set up a new ministry to boost the cooperative culture in India, it will need a lot of lateral support for generating research-based or evidence-based knowledge on what more the country must do to make cooperatives an integral pillar of micro-economic progress. The cooperative movement in India will thus need to adopt a holistic, inclusive, and multi-prong approach. For this, it has to learn from the achievements of milk cooperatives, a mix of success and failure of credit cooperatives, and setbacks of farm cooperatives that prevented its growth beyond 3.5%. In addition, it has to take notice of several challenges in the context of the changing socio-economic dynamics. Cooperatives in India have to emerge as a vital sector with a lot of checks and balances. Therefore, it's not going to be an easy journey, there are multiple challenges that the government has to address. Partnerships, sectoral alliances alongside Government efforts will be critical and the preferred pathway for this movement to gain ground and achieve the desired outcome of inclusive, equitable growth & development.
Against this background, CII-IRMA-ILO are collaborating to organize a round table to foster a dialogue on the issues, challenges and key strength of the cooperatives in India. It is envisaged that this joint event would provide an opportunity to also discuss the need for strengthening the policy environment to boost the cooperative movement in India as this also contributes towards improving the business environment for the cooperatives. CII, with its industry network, IRMA with its sector-specific knowledge and research capability, and ILO, with its international instruments and framework for enabling sustainable enterprises and promoting global best practices at workplaces, together will bring to the table a unique proposition that will help government and all stakeholders achieve this goal.