Commissioner/Secretary Cooperative Department, Nirmal Sharma reviewed the functioning and progress of the Department in Jammu Division at a meeting held here today.The meeting deliberated on various issues related to the functioning of the Department, Cooperative Societies functioning in Jammu division. The Commissioner /Secretary said that the sector has great significance in view of the vast potential of employment generation and scope for engaging educated unemployed youth of the State to earn their livelihood by way of organizing form groups registered as Cooperative Societies. She called upon the participants to explore possibilities for diversification of business activities and switching over to area-specific and viable business activities.
Keeping in view the scope of dairy activity in many districts and availability of Dairy Societies, the participants were directed to work out a mechanism for local collection of milk and its consumption in the same area/district by reviving and associating the defunct Dairy Cooperative Societies. Ms. Sharma issued directions for constituting a committee for conducting survey of the non-functional and defunct Cooperative Societies and suggesting remedial measures to make these Societies functional and business oriented. The field functionaries were directed to speed up the process of recovery of loans raised by various Cooperative Societies under the NCDC schemes and ST/MT loans from Cooperative Banks after proper reconciliation with the financing institution.On the occasion, the Registrar Cooperative Societies, J&K, B.A. Bhat informed that presently there are as many as 740 Cooperative Societies registered in the Jammu division, out of which, 386 are functional.Additional Registrar Jammu, Anjana Tickoo, Additional Registrar Kashmir, Reyaz Ahmad, other senior officers of the Administrative Department and District level officers of the Department were present in the meeting.