Centre trying to ruin cooperative sector across country: Kerala CM

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday attacked the Union government saying it was trying to destroy the cooperative sector in the country.

Vijayan said the century-old cooperative sector in the country has a pivotal role in the people’s lives.

Inaugurating the All India Cooperative Week here, Vijayan said civil society had elaborately discussed the changes brought in the cooperative sector and the state government had raised concerns of it.

”The Supreme Court has ruled that the states have the authority over the cooperative sector. This is a major setback to the Union government’s policy. We have also overcome the efforts to destroy our cooperative sector through demonetisation,” Vijayan said.

Vijayan said efforts were made to destroy the constitutional institutions of the country and the Union government was making use of such institutions to attack the cooperative sector.

”They (Centre) are trying to intervene in the cooperative sector by issuing new orders. While ours is a federal country, there are many interventions violating our federal laws. All these interventions are adversely affecting the cooperative sector,” Vijayan said.

The Chief Minister said the country was going through the highest price hike in the last three decades but Kerala managed to remain a state with low inflation due to the ”multi-faceted” intervention of the cooperative sector along with the Left government.

”We have also survived demonetisation which sought to paralyse our cooperative sector and financial institutions. They had also alleged that our cooperative societies were the depository of black money,” Vijayan said.