KSRM-Bhubaneswar organises Dr. Verghese Kurien Foundation Day Lecture

Bhubaneswar, Nov 21: Cooperatives now-a-days need not to be restricted to rural areas and agriculture sector, said, Mr. Balu Iyer, Regional Director ICA-Asia Pacific Region. In his foundation day lecture in KIIT School of Rural Management (KSRM), he opined that large scale urbanization has created scope for cooperatives in urban areas as well. Urbanization and formalization often are inversely related.

Beautification, modernization and development often harm the underprivileged migrants. Urbanization is eventually leading to the growth of informal sector that comes with its own set of problems and exploitation. Cooperatives might play a significant role in taming the onrush of such inherent exploitation of informal sector promulgating the sense of ownership, fostering the  fellow feeling and nurturing the family ambiance.

Mr. Iyer informed that student cooperatives are world wide popular in universities and their combined revenue is worth $2.9 billion. Against this backdrop Universities from India and more specifically KIIT university might think of developing students cooperative of their own.

Keeping parity with the social changes can be vital for the survival and sustainability of the cooperatives. In this era of globalization; diversification can be another means of survival for cooperatives. As an example there is a cooperative of waste pickers “SWACH” in Pune that produces filament for 3D printing machines.

Amidst growing economic inequality cooperatives can offer significant help to reduce the same and can help in women empowerment. Lack of self motivation for taking up entrepreneurial initiatives is pulling behind the growth development of cooperatives in India.

The combined worth of top 2000 cooperatives of the world is staggering $3 trillion. This depicts the potential of cooperatives in India that is yet to be tapped. Mr. Iyer has also expressed that he is hopeful that in subsequent time cooperatives would be also helpful in attaining the much desired sustainable development.

In his welcome address Dr. A. Samanta founder, KIIT & KISS adviced students of KSRM to go to the villages around Bhubaneshwar including KISS and Model village Kalarabanka in Cuttack District to get a true feeling about Rural Management and make their education purposeful. Among others R.N. Dash Secretary, KIIT & KISS, Prof. P.P Mathur, Vice-Chancellor, KIIT University, Dr. S. Samanta, Registrar also spoke on the occasion. Prof. L.K. Vaswani Director KSRM gave an introductory lecture on the foundation day and KSRM while Prof. Sumita Sindhi prososed the vote of thanks