Indigenous people and cooperative development in the North East India / edited by M.H.Khan and Pankaj Naithani

Since the Planning Commission, Government of India has drated and circulated the Model Cooperative Act (1991) to various State Governments with a view to evolve and develop conducive environment for self-reliant, self-sufficient and liberal cooperatives, the debate is on in the cooperative forums and circles, especially at the State levels on the subject of amendment of the existing Stana Cooperative Acts or enacting a liberal parallel Act. There are some of the Seases those have not only taken lead in the sense that they have enacted parallel Acts rather they have also started reviewing the consequences both positive and negative, of such an exercise. At the same time there are many States those are s in the state of dilemma and finding it difficult to chose between the two options-enactment of parallel Act or amending the existing one. There are also some which not even have acted on the issue or taken the matter seriously.

However, as it is an established fact that due to the excessive bureaucratisation, government control and interference and restrictive provisions in most of the State Cooperative Acts cooperatives have not only lost their significance as democratic institutions but also their salience as member-owned organisations. It is so, since the member-centrality and member's participation in day-to-day activities of cooperatives has reduced considerably on the one hand, and on the other the federal organisations have hijacked their constituent primaries. Under such a situation, the reformatory measures being taken-up by the Planning Commission can be instrumental in revitalising and rejuvenating the cooperative movement in India where members will have greater say and the government's role shall restrict to a facilitator.

It is one of the hard facts that the cooperative movement has not grown proportionately in the North East (NE) Region compared to rest of India, and many reasons ranging front ensurgency to Government's excessive control and from lack of awareness of cooperative principles to improper marketing network can be attributed for the backwardness of the NE-Region with regards to cooperatives. However, the basic question that needs an answer is-"Why cooperatives in the North-East have not grown property despite the presence of the essential spint of co-operation? The NE-Region is primarily inhabited by the tribal community, which exercise self-help, mutual-help and trust in their day-to-day activibes, functions and social decisions. But, the present system of regulating cooperatives seems failing to organise them and to motivate them to transform these principles of cultural and social development to take-up economic activities/ ventures on community basis Observing the existence of the essence of co-operation and suitable platform for cooperatives to flourish vis-à-vis under-developed status of cooperative movement in the NE-Region, the Centre for Cooperatives and Rural Development, LBS National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie (India) with support from the North-Eastern Council (NEC), Shillong, State Governments of the NE-Region (including Sikkim), ILO COOPREFORM Programmes and INDISCO organised a Policy Seminar for the North-Eastern States to amend their Cooperative Societes Acts from 22-24 May 2000 at the Hotel Pinewood. Shillong This publication, Indigenous People and Cooperatives Development in the North-East India, is an outcome of the presentations made and discussions and deliberations held during the Seminar, However, it is not only the collection of papers, articles and proceedings rather, more accurately, it is an effort to 6cilitate the co-operators, administrators, academicians and cooperative development agenci in the North-East India in particular and national level cooperative development inst to critically analyse the issues of cooperative development in the North-East India. The whole s is divided into four sections with the inclusion of the List of Participants as the last section Te section, Theme Papers, is composed of the papers presented during the Seminar mostly by the mos Persons. The second section, State Presentations, is actually based on the presentations mu representatives from various States of the NE-Region, including Sikkim. The third section Pricing presents the diary of the presentations, comments, discussions and deliberations held on then, anti postscript Specifically, following crucial points have emerged: Cooperatives of the Region appears still in need of the financial support from the Gover they get accustomed to the economic challenges they are likely to face due to the pr globalisation liberalisation and privatisation. Some laws related to cooperatives and land reform need amendment to ease the cooperatives, especially in the light of the practice of Jhoom cultivation and tribal claws.

There is need to organise awareness and training programmes not only for the tribal commbut also for the grass root level government functionaries.

Cooperatives are to be raised on the basis of the need and resource, and not as part government programmes. The systematic development of tribal cooperatives is desired NE-Region.

Various economic sectors like dairying, ginger, piggery, poultry, potato, hatchery, weaving etc. can be given high priority to organise cooperatives. There is need to restructure the primaries and intermediary cooperatives, and these can be entrusted with the jobs lille of primary produces, smaller processin and transport etc. to ensure better economic Marketing is one of the crucial aspects to ensure better business performance by the cooperatives. The need is to strengthen the present communication system and to com network of link roads joining the interiors with the main roads.

Cooperative Laws should be drafted or transformed in easy-to-understand language so dum community understands it properly, and feel it simple to deal their affairs in consonance laws. Presently there is no practical tie-up between various national level marketing organisa the Primary Producer's Cooperatives. It is an urgent need of the time to build such a only then tribal cooperatives would get remunerative prices to their produces.

In most of the States PACS are engaged in the transportation and distribution of the PCS due to its limitations can not generate required surplus for a cooperative to be financialy Diversification of activities of such PACS is therefore required. It is very likely that on the name of the tribal customary laws some of the tribal common dominate their fellow tribal and non-tribal. Thus, a system to check and restricted people with vested interests in the cooperatives is to be developed in the NE-Regon Papers and State Presentations in this volume are produced without much of the editing so that the readers of the book will taste their real flavour. However, an attempt has been made to make the Proceedings of the Seminar very comprehensive and elaborate. This has been done primarily to facilitate those readers who would prefer to directly peer into the Proceedings in the first phase of their readings. But, they will find real charm only in their second phase of readings while going through the main papers and presentations.