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The Hindu
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Former MP calls for setting up panel to revive cooperative sector in Puducherry
Former MP and Puducherry Maanila Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (PMMMK) president M. Ramadass has urged the government to constitute a committee of experts to evolve a road map for the development of the cooperative sector in Puducherry. In a statement, Mr. Ramadass pointed out that in the assessment of the Union Ministry of Cooperation, Puducherry lags behind among 28 States and 8 Union Territories. The government should rectify the situation by charting out a road map for the growth of cooperatives, focused on the primary cooperative networks, digital infrastructure, policy reforms and prosperity of communities, especially, farmers and labourers. Stating that the government had missed an occasion to reflect on the state of the cooperative sector during the celebration of International Day of Cooperatives recently, Mr. Ramadass felt that the movement which had struck deep roots over the course of seven decades in sectors, such as agriculture, livestock, fisheries, weaving, sugar mills, public distribution system and consumer welfare, was today crippled by multiple problems. 'The movement, which should have been a people's movement by the people and for the people, has become a bureaucratic one defeating the principles of cooperation,' he said. There was no Cooperative Election Commission to hold periodic and regular elections to cooperatives and to ensure the rule of the members. More often than not, the officials of the Department act as Administrators of the societies as a result of which the members were reduced to strangers in their own institutions. In the absence of elected committees, central and higher-level societies were operating according to the whimsical and arbitrary orders of politicians. Moreover, the activities of the societies have not been audited periodically and neither the politicians nor the officials of the Department owned accountability for not holding elections, annual meetings and conducting auditing, he added. As a result of political interference and administrative incompetence, several cooperative spinning mills and sugar mills had turned defunct, he said. The Cooperative Advisory Committee as mandated in the Puducherry Cooperative Act 1972 has not been formed. The number of officers has not increased in consonance with the growth of the cooperative sector and consequently the workload has increased and hampered the cooperative department from performing its duties properly, Mr. Ramadass said.
The Hindu
22-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Former MP flags data gaps in ready reckoner of government
Former MP and Puducherry Maanila Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (PMMMK) president M. Ramadass has said that the new edition of the document 'Puducherry at a Glance 2024' was lacking in crucial data and demographic facets pertaining to the Union Territory. In a statement, Mr. Ramadass said the compilation released by the Chief Minister recently did not, for instance, have any data for 2004-2005. The statistics in the brochure relate to the year 2023-24 and previous years. The demographic information for the year 2024 is that of 2011 data, agricultural data of 2015 and the State income data of 2022-23. 'It is inappropriate for the publication of 2024 to state the population of Puducherry and other demographic facets in terms of 2011 data,' he said. Although no census was undertaken after 2011, the population of 2024 should have been projected through growth rate approach and all the demographic variables such as total population, men, women, children, old age composition, rural - urban population, Scheduled Caste population etc., should have been presented, he said. The PMMMK founder felt that the Department of Economics and Statistics should have attempted to construct the Human Development Index of Puducherry on the basis of the methodology evolved by the Government of India. The environmental data is also conspicuous by its absence. Puducherry is extensively affected by pollution of air, water, noise and traffic and there are proven methods of measuring them. Mr. Ramadass also suggested that the State Domestic Product (SDP) and per capita income, the barometers of development, should have been presented with better insights. The component-wise sources of SDP should have been furnished instead of confining only to primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Further, the current price State income and per capita income should be shown at constant prices also, so as to estimate the real growth sans inflation. For assessing the regional disparities in growth, region-wise SDP data should also be given. In the case of agriculture, details of productivity, crop intensity, wages, disparities in region-wise distribution of land should be provided. The publication may prove more utilitarian if the inadequacies or data gaps on a range of critical indicators are rectified. The respective departments should initiate necessary action in this regard and present the data in the next publication, he said.
