Introduction
Cooperatives are the organizations which are deeply embedded within the communities in which they reside. They are an important model of democratic decentralization as they are governed by democratic principles and values which is well reflected in their functioning at the grass-root levels. The panchayats and cooperatives are important forms of decentralized model of governance. As self- help organizations, cooperatives in developed and developing countries, contribute to poverty-eradication and employment generation through economic and social
progress of their members and employees. Through various income-generation activities, they improve the socio-economic standard of their members and the immediate communities. Cooperatives are the best model of decentralization ushering in development through their pivotal role in poverty-eradication and employment generation.
The success of Amul pattern of milk cooperatives has been due to their mobilizing a large number of poor thereby improving socio-economic condition of the poor. Cooperatives here can be successful given the right type of structural and environment conditions. Support mechanisms aiming at improving structural factors helping them to find markets for their products, and encourage effective participation while fostering capable leadership can help them to be successful. The women in this respect can provide right momentum through active participation in the working of cooperatives.
In the recent years, the women have emerged as important agents of change in the working of cooperatives, as many of the cooperatives have been successful due to their active participation and also their ability to lead from the front. In poverty-eradication and employment generation, the role of women has become very important because of the dynamism, passion, integrity and innovation they exhibit in undertaking various socio-economic activities.
Empowerment and Decentralisation
In the process of decentralisation, the concept of empowerment is the key. An empowered community can play an important role in the success of decentralisation efforts. Cooperatives being membership-based organisations with deep roots in the community with a democratic structure allowing everyone to have equal rights of participation are ideal for empowering the poor communities, so cooperatives are primarily empowering institutions. They have emerged as a powerful instrument for gender mainstreaming and integrating women into the development process. The role of cooperatives in empowerment of women has provided them necessary space and support for promoting economic self-reliance,developing self-confidence, overcoming exploitation and taking effective steps towards achieving greater control over their lives. More importantly, the cooperatives empower the women to have self-confidence to initiate income- generating activities so as to come out of the clutches of money-lenders and improve their socio-economic standards.
Within the framework of Indian democratic polity development policies, plans and programmes have aimed at women’s advancement in different spheres. From the Fifth Five Year Plan onwards there has been a marked shift in approach to women’s issues from welfare to development. In recent years, the empowerment of women has been recognised as a central issue in determining status of women.Apart from 73rd and 74th Amendments to Constitution providing for reservation of seats in local bodies of Panchayats and municipalities for women, 97th Constitutional Amendment has a process for reservation
Daily Coorperatives
It is well known that Amul pattern of dairy cooperatives in Gujarat have ushered in milk revolution in the country. Amul pattern has contributed to the fact that India has progressed from a milk-deficit country to emerge as a large milk-producing country in the world. Dairy cooperatives have played a key role in employment generation opportunities for women. In many of the cases earlier the income from dairy animals did not remain in hands of women and neither the decision regarding sale and purchase, because of the grip of money-lenders on their
lives, who worked as exploitative middlemen. The formation of women dairy cooperatives provided them an empowering tool to organise themselves into democratic organisations, and they enjoyed their ownership rights, which gave then operational freedom. Due to this, women have better control over sale of milk and use of income from it. With the registration of women as members of dairy cooperatives, the price of milk supply to society can be paid to women directly.
Various research findings have revealed that women dairy farmers are motivated to join cooperatives in order to access market and input services and thereby increase their income. There has been a positive impact of dairy cooperatives as well as women dairy cooperatives on the income and employment generation of milk producers in various areas where studies have been undertaken.
Milch cattle in India are mainly tended by women. They know much more about the case and feeding of dairy animals. Amul realised this and built women empowerment activities as important component of its dairy development programme. Effective training of women in animal husbandry practices gave them a professional edge to sustain themselves by being members of dairy cooperatives, and this led to rapid increase in the number of women as members of dairy cooperatives. The percentage of women members has seen a rapid increase over the years. Through formation of all women dairy cooperative (WDC), the women found themselves empowered as they were authorised to make their own decisions in meetings held outside the home. Income from WDCs enabled the women to make meet household expenditures without being dependent on their husbands.
The Amul pattern of milk cooperatives under Operation Flood appears to be an effective poverty eradication strategy, but in reality, it has not been so. This is because its focus was on a single productive activity, dairying, while the rural poor included all categories like old, tribals, landless, small farmers, artisans, etc. However, increased income from milk under Operation Flood encouraged a process of change in other activities of milk producing house-holds thus contributing to their socio-economic development.
The Amul pattern of dairy cooperatives exhibits decentralised model of development in which the fruits of development from women do not trickle from up, but instead these emanate from the hard work and toil of the members of women dairy cooperatives themselves who act as important agents of change in their empowered communities. This model of poverty-eradication is different from centralised models of development where the organisations from a top-down approach try to push in the developmental agenda which may not be spontaneous, but here it is driven by the passion, zeal and commitment of the people more particularly women at the grass-root levels.
Shri Mahila SEWA Sahakari Bank
In 1974, 4000 self-employed women established the SEWA Bank as a cooperative bank with the specific bbjective to provide credit to self-employed women within a view to empower them and reduce their dependence on money-lenders. The self-employed women are the bank’s shareholders who meet every
year. A democratic spirit, true to cooperative culture is followed, as there are regular elections. The Bank is run professionally by the managers hired by the Board. SEWA Bank works only with the poor women and the loans are available only for economic activities and not for personal use.
A cooperative’s pro-poor concern is clearly visible as the bank extends credit to highly indebted women so that they can come out of the vicious cycle of debt of the money-lenders. Once a women frees herself from high interest rate, she gains bargaining power within her suppliers. Then she uses her new credit productively so that she can generate more income which she can use to repay the loan and build up working capital. Before borrowing, while repaying and after repayment, SEWA encourages its members to save.
The SEWA Bank has been successful in breaking the vicious cycle of indebtedness and dependence on money-lenders and traders. This has increased the bargaining power of the women. The bargaining power given to women enhancestheir confidence to explore more productive economic avenues, and also form cooperatives. The bank has enabled the women to develop the skills necessary to deal with formal financial and other institutions. This leads to women being trained in the habit of banking, thus inculcating in them a sense of thrift. SEWA Bank is providing the necessary banking infrastructure which provides all assistance to serve the needs of self-employed and small business. A large number of the
members have their own hand-carts, sewing machines, looms and tools for carpentry and blacksmith. The bank has helped the poor women to build up their own water structures, like wells, ponds, hand pumps, etc. By building bonds of trust and getting involved with the whole life of the borrowers, high recovery rates of the bank has been established.
SEWA Bank’s poverty reduction strategy is very broad, and visionary, based on practical realities. The Bank not only helps in easy access to financial services (savings, credit insurance), but also helps in building up and creating assets of poor (land, house, equipment, cattle, etc.). The poor have also access to market infrastructure, technology, information, social security, and collective strength for active participation. SEWA’s approach of employment generation is not creating ready-made jobs, but is also laying emphasis on strengthening the workers through cooperatives so that they can overcome structural constraints and enter markets to enhance their competitiveness.
The SEWA model of decentralisation lays emphasis on creating appropriate conditions for strengthening of the grass-root institutions, like cooperatives,through encouraging poor women for active participation, so as to develop their professional skills to start economic activities leading to poverty-eradication. Again, here the approach is not driven by top-centric agency/policy based on centralisation, but is largely decentralised and people-driven based on the interest strengths of participatory institutions like cooperatives.
Indian Cooperative Network for Women
Indian Cooperative Network for Women based in Chennai has also emerged as an effective model of cooperative development for poor women based on micro-credit which leads to poverty-reduction and employment generation. It provides loans at low interest rates to poor women, ensures their financial independence, and also provides them skills-based training so that they start their ownenterprises. The Network has reached a large number of poor entrepreneurs peovidin them credit with almost 100 % recovery rate.. The members of Indian Cthooperative Network for Women are vendors, home-based workers, weavers, food processors, handloom workers, etc. Women have come out of isolation and emerged as successful entrepreneurs. This case also demonstrates that decentralisation through cooperative model based on the mobilization of poor women can turn out to be an effective tool in tackling poverty-reduction. The leadership capabilities of women are also developed to a great extent in the process and their social exclusion is tackled effectively.
Women Cooperative Educational Field Projects of NCUI with SpecialReferences to Bilaspur (Himachal Pradesh)
In order to strengthen cooperative movement in cooperatively under-developed states/areas and reducing regional imbalance in the level of development, Government introduced a scheme of Cooperative Education of NCUI in 1976. This is a central sector scheme funded by the Ministry of
Agriculture. The main objective of the scheme is to develop and promote cooperative societies in project areas and through then to increase the productivity of farmer members thus increasing their income while improving their socio-economic condition. NCUI is implementing this scheme through 43 educationalfield projects located in various parts of the country. Cooperative educationcombined with farm/technical guidance are the key points of the project approach. Self-Help Groups based on cooperative principles are formed by the project personnel to facilitate micro-credit and sustainable income-generating activities.
The employment generation strategy of these projects is on enhancing the
skills of the poor women so that through formation of SHGs/cooperatives, they can market their produce and improve their daily income. The skill development areas are — tailoring of cloth, embroidery, agarbati making, mushroom cultivation, jute bag makers, papad making, brown making, vermi compost makers, etc. The programmes are conducted in these areas so that women trained in these fields can
start their ventures to sustain themselves.
The NCUI Cooperative Education Field Project in Bilaspur (Himachal Pradesh) in the recent times has made useful intervention in mushroom production with the help of Ja-Zenchu, (Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, Japan). The area had huge unemployment and there was no regular source of income for the weaker sections of the society. 52 beneficiaries from weaker community (SHGs & PACs) members were identified for mushroom cultivation, majority of whom were women. They were provided training in scientific management of mushroom growing, construction of low cost mushroom houses, preservation of nutritive contents, integrated pest management, etc. This paved the way for a steady income generation as each beneficiary cultivated 300 bags of mushroom and earned about Rs. 20,000 per year by selling their product. The beneficiaries were also trained in child care, HIV, nutrition, health and hygiene. This successful intervention also made more women interested to cultivate mushroom after observing the progress of the beneficiaries.
NCUI HAAT
was inaugurated on 16 th August, 2021, Loccated at NCUI premises, it’s a unique selling platform of the products of lesser known cooperatives/SHGs. These cooperatives/SHGS are provided free facilities to
exhibit their products, and the profits they make are their own, without any share of NCUI. NCUI encourages these cooperatives to showcase their products, and the producers of these cooperatives have a big benefit of getting a fair price of their produce without interference of middlemen. Many women cooperatives/SHGs from all parts of the country including remote corners have exhibited their products
in NCUI Haat in recent months. NCUI Haat is provide good opportunities for such cooperatives/SHGs to enhance their livelihood opportunities. The chances of employment generation for these cooperatives have increased manifold due to setting up NCUI Haat which is proving to be a big boon for women cooperatives.
The NCUI case of tackling poverty through income generation clearly shows that decentralised model of development based on capacity building of poor women can yield positive results as the women through their united actions, commitment and dedication want to learn new skills to improve their economic
condition.
Implications and Future Strategies
From the above description, it is clear that the decentralised cooperative model of women is an effective platform for poverty eradication and employment generation. The Government has launched several programmes/schemes to give support and boost the growth of women cooperatives, so that they participate in decision-making and control over resources making women equal partners with men. However, it is found that the present Government plans and schemes do not have a major National Scheme on Women Cooperative Model for Employment Generation, though at the state level we have some components of this activity/programme. With the creation of a separate Ministry of Cooperatives, it is hoped that this vital aspect will be given due prominence as a policy priority in the times to come. A scheme on ‘Prosperity through Cooperation’ has been visualized in this year’s budget. Hopefully this scheme will cover this vital factor.
Director, NCUI
