Let us take one example.
Suppose a poor
villager has two cows and gets ten litres of milk.
After consumption by
his family everyday he finds a surplus
of five liters of milk. What can
he do with the
surplus? He may want to sell the milk but may not find a customer in the
village.
Somebody may tell him to sell the milk in the nearby town or city. Again he
finds it
difficult, as he does
not have money to go to the town to sell milk. What should he do? He
is faced with a
problem. Do you have any solution for him?
One day that poor
villager met a learner of NIOS who had earlier read this lesson. The
learner told him, you
see, you are not the only person facing this problem. There are many
others in your
village and also in the nearby village who face a similar problem. Why don’t
you all sit together
and find a solution to your common problem? In the morning you can
collect the surplus
milk at a common place and send somebody to the nearby town to sell
it. Again in the
evening, you can sit together and distribute the money according to your
contribution of milk.
Of course first you have to deduct all the expenses from the sale
proceeds.
That villager agreed
to what the learner said. He told everybody about this new idea and
formed a group of
milk producers in his village. By selling the milk in the nearby town they
were all able to earn
money. After that they did not face any problem of finding a market for
the surplus milk.
This process
continued for a long time. One day some body suggested that instead of selling
only milk why not
produce other milk products like ghee, butter, cheese, milk powder etc.
and sell them in the
market at a better price? All of them agreed and did the same. They
produced quality milk
products and found a very good market for their products not only in
the nearby town but
in the entire country.
Just think it over. A
poor villager, who was not able to sell five liters of milk in his village, is
now selling milk and
milk products throughout the nation. He is now enjoying a good life.
How did it happen?
Who made it possible? This is the reward of a joint effort or co–
operation.
The term co-operation
is derived from the Latin word co-operari, where the word co
means ‘with’ and operari
means ‘to work’. Thus, co-operation means working together.
So those who want to
work together with some common economic objective can form a
society which is
termed as “co-operative society”. It is a voluntary association of persons
who work together to
promote their economic interest. It works on the principle of self-help
as well as mutual
help. The main objective is to provide support to the members. Nobody
joins a cooperative
society to earn profit. People come forward as a group, pool their
individual resources,
utilize them in the best possible manner, and derive some common
benefit out of it.
In the above example,
all producers of milk of a village joined hands, collected the surplus
milk at a common
place and sold milk and milk products in the market. This was possible
because of their
joint effort. Individually it would not have been possible either to sell or
produce any milk
product in that village. They had formed a co-operative society for this
purpose.
In a similar way, the
consumers of a particular locality can join hands to provide goods of
their daily need and
thus, form a co-operative society. Now they can buy goods directly from the
producers and sell those to members at a cheaper price. Why is the price
cheaper?
Because they buy
goods directly from the producer and thereby the middlemen’s profit is
eliminated. Do you
think it would have been possible on the part of a single consumer to buy goods
directly from the producers? Of course, not.
