According to DoC officials, the department as well as 37 district offices responsible for monitoring cooperatives at local level have remained understaffed for the last few years. The existing Cooperative Act too lacks teeth to take action against the unscrupulous SCCs that have been threatening the sustainability of the sector.[break]
“We aren´t in a position to effectively monitor cooperatives given the manpower available with us. More than 180 of the total 594 posts at cooperative offices across the country are lying vacant,” said Sudarshan Prasad Dhakal, registrar of DoC.
Existing Cooperative Act authorizes DoC to scrap registration of cooperatives that are in operation flouting their objectives and slap a penalty of Rs 1,500 for those failing to submit financial report when demanded.
“The act hasn´t specified the process of taking action before resorting to cancellation of registration. This is making us difficult to initiate action against them,” added Dhakal.
Thanks to shortage of skilled workforce, the DoC has been conducting occasional monitoring of SCCs by non-gazetted officers, who are not qualified enough to analyze financial statements prepared by experienced auditors.
In a bid to minimize the impact of manpower crunch in regulating cooperatives, the DoC is conducting an Organization and Management (O&M) Survey. It has suggested the government appoint at least second class officers in all 37 district cooperatives and increase the number of cooperative inspectors.
Dhakal said 35 cooperative inspectors are involved in monitoring of more than 4,000 SCCs in the Valley, while 83 inspectors have been undertaking the task of monitoring SCCs in rest of the country. More than 250,000 people are associated with over 20,000 cooperatives throughout the country. Nearly 12,000 of them are mobilizing deposits from people. While 8,800 of the cooperatives are operating as SCCs, the remaining are functioning as multi-purpose cooperatives.
Given the existing anomalies among SCCs - especially the big cooperatives in urban areas -- in issuing loan and mobilizing deposits, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has already issued a set of guidelines to the DoC, urging the latter to act with a certain timetable to bring the unscrupulous cooperatives in the right track.
The MoF issued the guidelines after an independent study a few months ago came up with an alarming report about the anomalies in around two dozen big cooperatives operating in the capital and other major cities.
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