New Delhi, Jan 05: Congress president Sonia Gandhi has sought a constitutional amendment with respect to cooperatives to ensure that the basic principles of cooperation were preserved and protected within the body of state laws. In a letter to the Prime Minister a few days back, which was released by the party today, she said the starting point for any constitutional amendment with respect to cooperatives should, of course, be that "cooperatives" as a subject would remain in the state list.
Experts have already emphasised that the three key words for the empowerment of cooperatives--"voluntary, democratic and autonomous", and the three rights, viz, "the right to elections, the right to autonomous management and the right to independent professional audit"--must be so incorporated in the constitution that no state law can abrogate them.
The leader of opposition in Lok Sabha said despite its potential, cooperatives have not been able to fully participate in production process and in trade "because they have been held back by a supressive legal and regulatory environment".
The state cooperative laws, she said, have often hindered citizens from setting up cooperative enterprises, from freely managing those enterprises, from choosing who they wish to associate with, and even from dissolving those enterprises.
Cooperative acts in states have not always been good enough for the purpose of practicing the "principle of cooperation", she added.
Bureau Report