Co-operatives -- a weapon to fight inflation

·??????Two faces of co-operative movement in India

Any Human being,?born in this world needs many commodities, i.e. food, transport, house like commodities, to be alive and to get this we have made a single stuff, a master key, called MONEY.

People often say that life is hell. We need to fight tooth and nail in oder to survive in this current scenario. It is not a big thing to guess that they are talking about the difficulty in earning money.?

?Ignorant people looks for the god to get out of the financial problems. Why we can say them as ignorant, because they often forget that money is created by humans for their welfare through the monetary system but not by the god. The purpose of any system we implement in a society is intended to benefit all people in the country not to benefit only a particular section of people. Monetary system is no different. Its purpose is to help and monitor the development of a country financially and it is supposed to solve the financial problems of all people.

The?INFLATION, made us believing?“ Maana?Ki Paisa Khuda?Nahi, ?Per Khuda?se Kam Bhi To Naahin.” ?

It is not easy to EARN more and more MONEY?to cop up with the rate of inflation. The only way out is SAVE MONEY, and get ?prepared to face INFLATION.

Population of India could be divided into three basic categories,?

POOR – do not have money to live a normal life, the inflation can not harm them as practically, they do not have to loose anything, as ?the circumstances force them to be ?shameless,

RICH – they have all the things, money can buy, they do not bother of what others do. They proud to be shameless.

Middle?Class – the segment of people maximum affected???by INFLATION, ?as they do not have enough money to live life of a rich and their beliefs, their traditions, their ego, ?don’t allow them to live like a poor, making them to live a life of an insect running after money.

·???????WHERE DOES THE PROBLEM LAY

In our day-to-day life we have so many fronts to fight against. Let us see few of the probable causes, for inflation or boosting the inflation.

·???????OUR RULERS

India is considered to be a largest Democracy in the world and the copy book definition is “ For the people , By the people……”?but in the reality, We middle class people are being ruled by the Rich People, as to win any election?requires lacs of money,?so?everybody?can not?think of fighting any elections. Also after becoming MLAs or MPs?a person no longer remains a poor or?of middle class.

When there is no representation of Common Man in the Government, how come we expect any favorable condition here to live a good life for us.?We have to think?of our betterment, on ourselves only.

·???????OUR TRADITIONS

From generations, We buy our groceries?like wheat, rice, daal etc. at once in a year, in past the infrastructure we had and the seasonal crops taken made us to do seasonal procurement. Today, We have technology for crops storages, transportations, marketing network etc. but everything help the traders and middlemen to take unethical advantages by creating false shortages and doing black marketing against huge seasonal demands.

We should change our tradition of seasonal storage, we start procuring only right quantity at the time of requirement only.

·???????OUR MARKETING AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

Today the commodities from producers go to C&F agents, to Distributors, to Wholesalers, to Dealers / agents, to Sub dealers, to retailers and so on to reach till real Consumers. At each and every stage, there is a margin / profit?added?to the final COST of a commodity, has to be paid by the consumer.

Hence, the cost we pay to buy any commodity is much?much more higher than what the real producers earn. So, We earn less and at the same time have to spend more.?

Our basic needs are,

ROTI – the rate, food growers earn is around 4 to 5 times lesser than the rate we consumer spend to buy the same.

KAPADAA- the rate, a weaver earn for the fabric he makes, is around 10 to 20 lesser than a consumer spend to buy it.

MAKAAN- a middle class people, can not even dream it.

·???????THE ADVERTISING / MARKETING AGENCIES

Advertisements exploit the desires of a consumer, by making an unnecessary?product?more?appealing, by playing with the consumers needs and wants.

Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, is a form of child exploitation. In addition, advertising frequently uses psychological pressure on the intended consumer, and they don’t eliminate themselves as potential customers. Which is harmful, as they make the people spending for?unnecessary products. Above all it incur pretty high rise into?the cost of product. i.e. the production cost of any soft drink should not be more than 2 to 3 rupees, but they are sold at 10 to 15 rupees per bottle.

·???????MULTI LEVEL MARKETING (MLM) OR DIRECT MARKETING IS NOT THE ANSWER

Here, it was claimed to provide direct contact ?between producers and users without any intermediates, do not require media publicity, resulting in very cost effective products available to the consumers.

But reality is not so, at the other end,?MLMs are "doomed by design" to recruit too many salespeople, who in turn will then attempt to recruit even more salespeople, ad infinitum.

Normally, Friends and family are treated as target customers. Here the nearer and dearer are being exploited and the promoters enjoy the fruits like traders and middlemen.

·???????WHERE IS THE ANSWER

India has basically an agrarian economy with 72% of its total population residing in rural areas . The rural people need lot of services in daily life which are met by village co-operative societies. The village cooperative societies provide strategic inputs for the agricultural sector, consumer societies meet their consumption requirements at concessional rates co-operative societies are helping in building up of?storage go-downs including cold storages, rural roads and in providing facilities like irrigation, electricity, transport and health. Various development activities in agriculture, small industry marketing and processing.

Co-operatives?could be the practical solution to our problems. But the co-operatives also have two faces, the good and the bad.

·???????The GOOD?FACE of co-operatives

Co-operation, occupies an important place in the Indian economy. Perhaps, no other country in the world is the co-operative movement?as large and as diverse as it is India. There is almost no sector left untouched by the co-operative movement.?Almost 50 percent of the total sugar production in India is contributed by sugar co-operatives and over 60 percent of the total fertilizer distribution in the country is handled by the co-operatives.

·???????The BAD FACE of co-operatives

In the same agriculture field, similar societies operate at the local wholesale market level and handle agricultural produce, called APMCs. Ideally, the farmers have a market for their produce right at their door-step. A market which assures them reasonable returns and guaranteed payments. But in practice the vegetable producers has to travel long distances to sell their produces and come to the APMC’s market yard situated at nearby town which are sometimes 100 to 200 km?away from their hometown. They have to physically carry their produces in individual transport. Where private traders?and middlemen?control?the?marketing?and?distribution?system for the vegetables. These middlemen decide the prices and the off-take from the farmers by the season. As vegetables are perishable, farmers are compelled, to sell it for whatever they are offered. ?Often, they have to sell their produces at throw-away prices. In this situation, the private traders make a killing and the rules of APMCs support the traders or the middlemen, though these societies are made for the farmers and by the farmers.

We see the Power- Show made and expenses made during the body elections of these so called co-operative societies. Now a day, these type of co-operatives have become Politician Generating Units at grass-root level. Normally it has been seen, the Presidents and the Chairman of these societies today are our MPs and MLAs of tomorrow. As we see the politicians no longer remains a CM (common man), so he/she forgets his/her duties towards the common people.

·???????TO NOW, WHAT DO ?

A practical motivation for the creation of?co-operatives is related to the ability of members to pool production and/or resources. In many situations, it is simply too expensive for an individual to manufacture products or undertake a service. Cooperatives provide a method for members to join together in an 'association', through which a group of members can acquire a better outcome, typically financial, than by going alone. This approach is aligned and can also be related as a form of ?ECONOMIC SYNERGY, where "two or more members working together to produce a result not obtainable by any of the members independently". While it may seem reasonable to conclude that larger the cooperative the better, this is not necessarily true, unless it is managed by an ideal managing body.

·???????WHERE AND HOW THE CO-OPERATIVE BASE HELPS

·???????Social cooperative

A)?????This type of social cooperatives bring together providers and beneficiaries of a social service as members.

B)??????This type of social cooperatives bring together permanent workers and previously unemployed people who wish to integrate into the labour market

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·???????Consumers' cooperative

A consumers' cooperative is a business owned by its customers. Employees can also generally become members. Members vote on major decisions and elect the board of directors from amongst their own number.

·???????Housing cooperative

A housing cooperative is a legal mechanism for ownership of housing where residents either own shares (share capital co-op) reflecting their equity in the cooperative's real estate, or have membership and occupancy rights in a not-for-profit cooperative (non-share capital co-op), and they underwrite their housing through paying subscriptions or rent.

·???????Utility cooperative

A utility cooperative is a type of consumers' cooperative that is tasked with the delivery of a public utility such as electricity, water or telecommunications services to its members. Profits are either reinvested into infrastructure or distributed to members in the form of "patronage" or "capital credits", which are essentially dividends paid on a member's investment into the cooperative.

In the case of electricity, cooperatives are generally either generation and transmission (G&T) co-ops that create and send power via the transmission grid or local distribution co-ops that gather electricity from a variety of sources and send it along to homes and businesses.

·???????Agricultural cooperative

An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a cooperative where farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity.

Agricultural cooperatives or farmers' cooperatives are cooperatives where farmers pool their resources for mutual economic benefit. Agricultural cooperatives are broadly divided into agricultural service cooperatives, which provide various services to their individual farming members, and agricultural production cooperatives, where production resources such as land or machinery are pooled and members farm jointly. Agricultural production cooperatives are relatively rare in the world, and known examples are limited to collective farms in former socialist countries and the kibbutzim in Israel.

?Agricultural supply cooperatives aggregate purchases, storage, and distribution of farm inputs for their members. By taking advantage of volume discounts and utilizing other economies of scale, supply cooperatives bring down members' costs. Supply cooperatives may provide seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, fuel, and farm machinery. Some supply cooperatives also operate machinery pools that provide mechanical field services (e.g., plowing, harvesting) to their members.

Agricultural marketing cooperatives provide the services involved in moving a product from the point of production to the point of consumption. Agricultural marketing includes a series of inter-connected activities involving planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing, transport, storage, food processing, distribution and sale. Agricultural marketing cooperatives are often formed to promote specific commodities.

·???????Credit unions and cooperative banking

Credit unions are cooperative financial institutions that are owned and controlled by their members. Credit unions provide the same financial services as banks but are considered not-for-profit organizations and adhere to cooperative principles.

·???????Cooperative wholesale society

The aim of a cooperative wholesale society is to arrange “bulk purchases, and, if possible, organize?production.”?

·???????Federal or secondary cooperatives

In some cases, cooperative societies find it advantageous to form cooperative federations in which all of the members are themselves cooperatives. Historically, these have predominantly come in the form of cooperative wholesale societies, and cooperative unions. Cooperative federations are a means through which cooperative societies serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.?