THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: To formulate a policy to strengthen the cooperative sector in the state, a national workshop titled ‘Kerala Cooperative Vision -2025’ will be held at Munnar under the aegis of the Cooperative Department and the Idukki District Cooperative Bank from August 22 to 24.
Cooperation Minister C N Balakrishnan said on Thursday that the workshop would have the participation of around 1,500 delegates, including ministers, MLAs, office-bearers of three-tier bodies, national and state-level corporators from various states, RBI, NABARD officials, state cooperative union and circle cooperative union office-bearers, registrars from other states, delegates from national cooperative federations, State Cooperative Banks, State Agricultural and Rural Development Bank, other apex banks, cooperative institutions, various boards under the Cooperative Department, District Cooperative Banks and Primary Agricultural Cooperatives Societies.
He said that Chief minister Oommen Chandy would inaugurate the workshop at 2 pm on Saturday.
The workshop would mainly focus on the formulation of policies to make use of the 1.40 lakh crore worth of fund parked in the cooperative banks in the state.
A symposium in that regard would be inaugurated by Planning and Information and PRD Minister K C Joseph.
K Sivadasan Nair MLA, CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran, BJP state president V Muralidharan and Planning Board member C P John will attend the function.
The vision document being prepared on the basis of the discussions will be presented at the workshop.
Onam Fairs and Nanma Stores
The minister said that Onam fairs would be opened across the state. Besides, the Nanma stores lying closed would be re-opened. For conducting the Onam fairs, `25 crore had been sanctioned. Asked about the delay in initiating action against the chairman and MD of Consumerfed who were facing allegations of corruption charges, he said it was the elected board which was to act against the chairman. In the case of the MD, it was for the Vigilance Department to act.
He said it was impossible to run Consumerfed stores on profit as the very purpose of Consumerfed was to provide essential items at reasonably cheap rates to the people.