Cooperative Authority to take momentum soon; genuine demands to be addressed: Minister Adhikari

Kathmandu: Minister for Land Management, Cooperative and Poverty Alleviation Balaram Adhikari has clarified that the National Cooperative Regulatory Authority has been constituted to resolve the problems arising in the cooperative sector.

At a programme organised in Kathmandu on Friday by the Nepal Society of Cooperative Journalists on the ‘role of cooperative department in the aftermath of the establishment of the Authority’, he said that the Authority would work as a regulatory institution from now onwards.

Urging the cooperative workers to be clear on the roles and responsibilities of the Department of Cooperative and Authority, Minister Adhikari said, “There was a discussion to scrap the department and put forward the role of the Authority. There is a difference on their works but coordination is a must between the two mechanisms”.
Unnecessary structures of the Department of Cooperative would be removed, he added.

“A question has raised on the relevance of the Department after the establishment of Authority. Unnecessary structures would be removed by keeping necessary ones. We have already scrapped the National Cooperative Board. The Department and Cooperative Training and Research Centre would go for merger”, the minister noted.
Registrar at the Department of Registrar, Umesh Dhungana said it was unnatural to keep alive two agencies for the regulation of an institution.

Chairperson of the National Federation of Savings & Credit Cooperative Union Limited (NEFSCUN) Chandra Prasad Dhakal said a separate Savings and Credit Cooperative Society (SACCOS) Act has no option for effective management of savings and credit cooperative organizations.