Cooperative Society – History
- While the cooperative movement emerged and developed globally in the mid-19th century, the seeds for it in India were planted at the end of that century.
- Its history began in Tamil Nadu. Farmers were dependent on landowners and moneylenders. The successive famines made farmers indebted.
- The debt problem of farmers was also a major reason for the Deccan Rebellion of 1875, following which the British government brought the Deccan Farmers Relief Act (1875) and the Farmers Loan Act (1884)
- In this situation, the then Madras Provincial Government appointed an officer named Sir Frederick Augustus Nicholson to study and report on the establishment of organizations like the agricultural credit societies operating in the West in India.
- Nicholson submitted his report in two large volumes in 1895 and 1897. He suggested that organizations like the Roybeson Societies operating in Germany could be established to provide credit to the farmers.
- The 1901 Famine Commission also made similar recommendations to the government. Based on these, the British government passed the Cooperative Societies Act, 1904.
- The Act was amended in 1912 to remove the shortcomings in these.
Cooperative Society in India
- The first cooperative society in India was registered in Tirur village in Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu, on 30.08.1904, as the Tirur Village Cooperative Society.
- This society was started through the efforts of Adhi Narayanayya, a retired Deputy Commissioner of Revenue, from Tirur village, and the initiative of P. Rajagopalachari, the first Registrar of Cooperative Societies in the Madras Province.
- Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister P.S. Kumaraswamy Raja, who was also its chairman, started the Bhupathi Raja Cooperative Bank in Rajapalayam in 1925 and was also its chairman. He brought Gandhiji to this bank in 1934.
- Gandhi visited the Thiruvallikeni Cooperative Society in Chennai in 1925.
- Gandhi, who had started and run Phoenix Farm and Tolstoy Farm while in South Africa, had a natural interest and involvement in cooperatives.
- He was very keen on strengthening the Indian cooperative movement.
- Various leaders of the Nehru-Dravidian movement have contributed to the development of the cooperative movement, including Pitti Thiagarayar, Pitira A.D. Panneerselvam, V.V. Rama and U.P.A. Soundarapandian. Justice Party N.R. Samiyappa, Tamil Nadu He supported the development of the Cooperative Training Institute.
- The institution is named after him and he started the Erode Nagar Bank.
- Not only economic development, but also the cooperative societies have played a major role in bringing about social development among various backward communities. People from various strata of society
- The Public Distribution Scheme of Tamil Nadu, which is functioning in the best way in India, is implemented through cooperative societies.
- Currently, public welfare schemes have increased to the extent that essential commodities from the fair price shop are delivered to the homes of the elderly and the differently abled.
Cooperatives and State Autonomy
- When the Montagu Chelmsford Reforms were brought in 1919, the cooperative sector came under the control of the states.
- Following this, the then British provinces took steps to strengthen the cooperative movement.
- In 1927, the Madras Provincial Government reviewed the progress of the cooperative movement and made recommendations for its improvement. Townsend Committee.
- The Madras Province Cooperative Societies Act was passed in 1932.
- This Act broadened the scope of the cooperative movement beyond the 1912 Act.
- The Vijayaraghavachari Committee (1939) and the Santhanam Committee (1968) formed after this gave the government recommendations for the development of the cooperative movement.
