SHILLONG: The cooperative sector in the state has not been performing well even as the state government has been pumping money to the under-performing cooperative societies.
“Every year, the government keeps on pumping a lot of money to these cooperative societies in the name of managerial subsidies which is wrong and it has to stop,” observed Additional Secretary in charge of Cooperation department, KN Kumar.
He was speaking at the one-day workshop for promotion and development of rural tourism cooperative societies and indigenous products organised by the office of MVDPTCS in collaboration with the Office of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies and sponsored by Raj Bhavan.
Speaking of the need for cooperative societies to venture into rural tourism, Kumar said that though there are about 1600 registered cooperative societies, only eight of these are categorised as Grade B and not a single cooperative society is categorised as Grade A. He pointed out to the huge number of Grade C or D societies, which essentially are failures. Out of the 1600 registered societies, there are approximately 30 that pay dividends to the state government, he added.
Turning to the positives, he stated that there are two sectors that showed green shoots or some moderate successes – dairy sector (milch cattle) and the tourism sector.
Kumar informed that there are 20 tourism cooperative societies in the state and the sector is expanding by leaps and bounds.