And the Big news

This day perhaps marks one the biggest milestones for the Mayurbhanj Cooperative experiment. Mayurbhanj Cooperative experiment was based on slightly different premise. Conventionally in Cooperatives, cooperative purchases the produce from members and then sells it at a later stage (with or without processing) for better returns to members. This necessitates the need for high cost working capital for purchasing the produce which is mostly borrowed from market or taken as grant from a funding agency.  Essentially this means that members sell 'to' the cooperative instead of 'through' the cooperative. When we began the experiment, we had some fundamental questions in mind

a) Can cooperatives (which are essentially business of the poor) be run without single paisa borrowing from market? This is not say that borrowing for business is bad, but more because poor are vulnerable and high cost working capital in case of loss can put them in vicious poverty cycle. Moreover when Cooperatives or for that matter any business begins, all external loaning agencies are reluctant to give loan and this puts cooperatives at back foot with regard to the volume they cater in their foundation years

b) If cooperative is business of the poor, can people not pool in their resources in cash and kind and run it for better returns from the market? Essentially this means that Cooperative truly becomes their business and they don't sell 'to' the cooperative but 'through' the cooperative

We are yet to explore the firm and final answers but first glimpse of the color after end of 'titration' shows that approach as worked. After collectively selling 96 quintals at village cooperative level for meeting immediate cash needs, the 'contributed' produce close to 100 quintals being sold today at almost double the current market price and without single paisa loan taken from market. More is yet to come, but the preliminary results presents before us a new approach to community enterprise building with small resources which villagers already have.

I am personally indebted to those who had helped us from falling down and leaving the cooperative experiment in the April turmoil. Specially thanks to Prof DP Mishra (IRMA) and Prof J. Banerjee (NIT Surat) and my close buddies Ashirbad, Suman, Ajita, Robin, Nirav, Bhavishya, Rachana, Ankur, Parthav, Abhishek, Sudhin, Avinash, Durgesh, Digyavijay, Sworen (&team), Sunayana, Vinay whose suport both moral and financial has kept the experiment going.  Many thanks to the onces whose good wishes have kept the confidence up in the midst of the shaking period.

Perhaps God gave us the 'possibility' and our task is to make it 'possible'