All-powerful commission needed to resolve cooperative crisis

The government should encourage the cooperatives to merge. We can bring down their number from 32,000 to around 10,000.

Thousands of cooperative-victims staged protests in various parts of the country demanding recovery of their deposits embezzled by cooperative operators. Hundreds of such depositors came to Kathmandu and staged capital-centric protests. The government recently signed an agreement with them, promising to solve their problems at the earliest. What are their major grievances? What are the larger issues of the sector? And how can this growing problem be managed? The Post ’s Thira Lal Bhusal sat down with Kashi Raj Dahal, chair of the Crisis-ridden Cooperatives Management Committee, a government agency. He is also a former chair of the Administrative Court. Excerpts: