Cooperative

Best Cooperative Trade Fairs in Asia 2026

by
Best Cooperative Trade Fairs in Asia 2026

Cooperatives across Asia are generating over $700 billion in combined annual revenue, and the trade fair circuit has become the most dynamic meeting ground for these member-owned enterprises. I have been tracking cooperative events across the continent for years, and 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most packed calendars I have ever … Read more

The Punjab Cooperative Bank That Survived Partition, Militancy and Demonetisation — Still Standing

by
The Punjab Cooperative Bank That Survived Partition, Militancy and Demonetisation — Still Standing

In the winter of 1947, a clerk at a small cooperative credit office in Lahore stuffed ledger books into a jute sack, crossed a border that hadn’t existed six months earlier, and reported for duty in a half-built office in Amritsar. That institution — the Punjab State Cooperative Bank (PSCB) — would go on to … Read more

Can a Cooperative Society Own Agricultural Land? The Answer Depends on Your State

by
Can a Cooperative Society Own Agricultural Land? The Answer Depends on Your State

In Sangli district, Maharashtra, a dairy cooperative with 1,200 members spent nearly three years trying to purchase 14 acres of agricultural land for a fodder cultivation unit. They had the funds — approximately ₹85 lakh pooled from member contributions and an NCDC subsidy. They had the willing seller. What they did not have was legal … Read more

The Chhattisgarh Cooperative That Pays Adivasi Farmers 3X Market Rate for Mahua and Tendu Leaves

by
The Chhattisgarh Cooperative That Pays Adivasi Farmers 3X Market Rate for Mahua and Tendu Leaves

In the dense sal forests outside Ambikapur, Surguja district, a 42-year-old Oraon tribal woman named Kamla Kerketta earned ₹38,000 last season selling dried mahua flowers — roughly three times what the local trader at the weekly haat would have offered her. The difference wasn’t luck. It was structure. A cooperative structure, built over years, that … Read more

The Sambhar Lake Salt Cooperative Is One of India’s Oldest — and Most Forgotten — Success Stories

by
The Sambhar Lake Salt Cooperative Is One of India's Oldest — and Most Forgotten — Success Stories

Somewhere on the cracked, white-crusted flats west of Jaipur, a 62-year-old Kharwal salt worker named Magan Lal scrapes crystallised salt into a mound with a wooden tool his grandfather once used. He earns approximately ₹180 for a day that begins before sunrise and ends when the Rajasthan heat becomes physically dangerous. His cooperative membership card … Read more

How to Register a Multi-State Cooperative Society in India

by
How to Register a Multi-State Cooperative Society in India

Cooperatives that operate across state boundaries face a unique regulatory challenge — they cannot simply register under a single state’s cooperative law. If you have ever wondered how organizations like IFFCO, NAFED, or Amul manage operations spanning multiple Indian states under one unified legal entity, the answer lies in a specific central legislation that I … Read more

The Warana Cooperative Complex in Kolhapur That Built an Entire Township From Scratch

by
The Warana Cooperative Complex in Kolhapur That Built an Entire Township From Scratch

Imagine standing on a stretch of dry, undulating land in western Maharashtra where nothing existed — no school, no clinic, no market, no paved road — and being told that within a few decades, a self-sufficient township of over 50,000 people would rise here, complete with sugar factories, dairies, engineering works, shopping complexes, colleges, and … Read more

Your Cooperative Chairman Is Corrupt — Here’s the Legal Way to Remove Him

by
Your Cooperative Chairman Is Corrupt — Here's the Legal Way to Remove Him

Last monsoon, in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra, a dairy farmer named Ramesh Jadhav watched his Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS) chairman approve a ₹14 lakh fertiliser contract with his own brother-in-law’s supply firm. Fourteen members knew it was wrong. Not one knew what to do about it. I’ve heard versions of this story from Rajasthan … Read more

This Tribal Cooperative in Bastar Has Outlived 78 Years of Government Schemes and Still Runs

by
This Tribal Cooperative in Bastar Has Outlived 78 Years of Government Schemes and Still Runs

Somewhere in the sal forests south of Jagdalpur, a 62-year-old Muria Gond woman named Sukhmati carries a headload of tamarind and mahua flowers to a collection centre that her grandmother also walked to. The centre belongs to a cooperative that was registered in 1948 — just months after India‘s independence — and against every reasonable … Read more

How GST Quietly Rewrote the Rules for Every Cooperative Society in India

by
How GST Quietly Rewrote the Rules for Every Cooperative Society in India

In January 2019, the secretary of a housing cooperative society in Pune’s Kothrud neighbourhood opened a tax demand notice for ₹3.8 lakh. Her society had collected monthly maintenance from 84 flat-owners for years — money that everyone understood moved from residents to the collective and straight back out as building services. Nobody had imagined it as a “supply of services.” Nobody had thought they needed a GST registration number. That envelope was the moment I first understood how completely the new tax architecture had unsettled India‘s cooperative sector.

Read more