Rajasthan becomes first State to fix minimum education qualification for cooperative body poll

Rajasthan in July 2017 laid down the minimum educational qualifications for contesting elections to village cooperative societies and various other cooperative bodies.

With this, Rajasthan became India’s first state to fix minimum education qualification for cooperative body poll.

In this regard, the Rajasthan Government amended State Cooperative Societies Rules, 2003. The new rules would benefit about 10000 cooperative and agricultural credit societies. Moreover, the benefit of education will accrue to the societies as their management will go to expert hands.

The State Cooperative Societies Rules, 2003, were amended for the purpose and notification was issued on 10 July 2017.

Key highlights

• The educational qualifications will range from Class V to Class VIII for election as members of governing boards of dairy societies, farming societies, consumer societies, weavers' societies, housing construction societies, urban banks, primary land development banks, credit societies, salary earners' societies and cooperative unions.

• The minimum qualifications for the primary committee members will be class VIII. For district-level committees, it will be Class X. The education level will be graduation for the state level committee.

• Elections to various posts in the societies after a certain level would be conducted through the State Cooperative Election Authority. Rajasthan will be also the first state in the country to establish Recruitment Board by the Cooperative Committees, which will recruit personnel for the cooperative committees.

• This move will ensure more employment in the field of cooperatives. It will also ensure competent and talented personnel are selected in a transparent way.

• A new poll calendar will be issued to facilitate the holding of elections under the new rules.