In what may be a major setback for the cooperative movements in the Northeast, the ministry of agriculture has decided to curtail fund for seven Central sector cooperative education projects, intended at promoting the cooperative movement in the region.
The curtailment of fund has not only brought the cooperative movement to a standstill but also the employees working under these projects across the Northeast are also deprived of their salaries since March 2012.
Informing this, the general secretary of Northeast Cooperative Education Projects Employees Union of the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) M.C. Sharma said that the NCUI, which implements the projects on behalf of the ministry of agriculture and cooperation of the central government, had also drastically and arbitrarily done away with various financial benefits of the employees including annual increments and medical benefits.
“We have been running from pillar to post in order to get this injustice undone, but all our prayers have simply fallen into deaf ears. Strange yet true, a number of memoranda submitted to the ministry concerned, and letters to several MPs from the region have simply not evoked any positive response,” Mr Sharma regretted.
The curtailment of fund is going to hit directly and indirectly to 36,000 people under various educational schemes supported by the ministry of agriculture and cooperation.
Under the scheme seven projects were operational in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Sikkim.
Mr Sharma pointed out that out of seven cooperative education projects under the NCUI going on across the Northeastern region, three were created way back in 1977, while the other four came into existence in 2005. “Employees who were working in the old projects under regular pay-scale with CPF benefits were suddenly converted into contractual employees in September 2005 curtailing all normal financial benefits that they were so long enjoying,” Mr Sharma said.