KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 18

Stakeholders have stressed on the need to brand cooperatives.

During an interaction titled ‘Branding Cooperatives’ organised by Nepal Cooperative Journalists Society today, stakeholders stated that government is not serious about branding cooperatives in the country.

“Branding would help in regulating cooperatives.

Stakeholders have been discussing about this issue for a long time, however no decision regarding this has been taken yet,” said Sudarshan Dhakal, former registrar of Department of Cooperatives. He added that cooperatives have become the most disorganised sector due to lack of policy to regulate the sector.

Meanwhile, President of National Cooperative Federation of Nepal Minraj Kandel said that branding could help in standardising organisational governance and financial transactions conducted by cooperatives. As the number of cooperatives is increasing each year, their transactions too have been growing. Thus, a self-regulatory system and monitoring by the government are very important, he added.

Kandel informed that the federation too is doing the homework to brand cooperatives.

According to KB Upreti, chairman of National Cooperative Bank, a total of 13,000 cooperatives are involved with the bank. Of this total, more than half the cooperatives are savings cooperatives. However, due to lack of regulations the savings of the public are at risk. He stressed on branding cooperatives to implement good governance practices in the sector.

Responding to the stakeholders, Registrar of the Department of Cooperatives Tok Raj Pandey said that cooperatives are more interested in serving the interests of their organisation rather than supporting the low-income public who deposit their money in the cooperatives.

“The department is not against branding of cooperatives.

We want them to focus and work towards what they were established for,” Pandey said. “Receiving a brand is not a one-time work. It has to be renewed every year so cooperatives have to become strong enough to continue with their brand otherwise one-time branding means nothing,” he added.

Pandey further claimed that the department has prepared different frameworks to regulate the cooperative sector.