Govt assistance waits for cooperatives to make hay
KATHMANDU, Dec 26 - The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) has proposed a directive regarding the operation of 4,000 cooperative shops to be set up throughout the country as announced by the government through the budget of the
current fiscal year.
The government has announced that it would provide Rs. 100,000 to each cooperative as seed money. The cooperatives to be set up in every village development committee (VDC) and in municipalities with a population of 30,000 will provide consumer goods at reasonable prices to poor and marginalised people.
MoAC spokesperson Dr. Hari Dahal told the Post that the cooperatives would provide goods to identified low-income customers at very reasonable prices.
As per the proposal, the district development committees (DDCs) will provide identity cards as per the recommendation of the VDCs and municipalities where the cooperative shops
will be situated.
Dr. Dahal added that the cooperative shops would use the money provided by the government as seed money to purchase goods to operate the shops initially.
Ministry officials said that they were planning to open such cooperatives by mid-April next year.
Secretary of the ministry Tek Bahadur Thapa said that establishing such shops was a challenging task as there were no cooperatives in half of the VDCs.
“There are many things to be worked out including the mechanism of operating the shops and recruitment of staff,” he said.
The ministry's proposal has given first priority to consumer-related cooperatives to run the shops.
Different monitoring systems will be set up to run the cooperatives. The minister, the registrar of the Department of Cooperatives and local development officers at the district level will head different structures to run the cooperatives effectively. There will be a board to oversee the shops at the local level.
