Topic: Reaching the Unreached through Primary Cooperatives in India Dr.Sudha K Department of Commerce Besant Women’s College, Mangalore, Karnataka State India

1.0 Introduction 2.0 Comparative and Competitive Advantage for Cooperatives Women in India have shown increasing trend in joining the cooperative organizations like industrial, thrift and credit, and consumer cooperatives for the social and economic development (Riba,1980). This is the indication of acceptance of cooperatives by the women folk as potential instrument for total family welfare.

 3.0 The Methodology  Based on the empirical survey conducted during  Both primary and secondary sources of data are used  The study is confined to the primary cooperatives working in different sectors in Dakshina Kannada District in the Karnataka State in India.

4.0 Role of Cooperatives in the Development of Women Dairy village coop-organised into State level mktg Federation-101,000 societies -11 million members. The Jawahar Mahila Cooperative Spinning Mill, Shetkari Mahila Cooperative Spinning Mill in Maharashtra, and Ichamati Cooperative Milk Producers Union and Malda Women Cooperatives in West Bengal are some of the success stories of women entrepreneurship in the cooperative domain.

 Micro credit  33% representation on the Board  The Self-employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, for example, serves some 500,000 women through various cooperatives providing services such as doorstep banking, rural production, health and childcare (Bibby and Shaw, 2005).  Sri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad(SMGULP)  women,67 branches,3.1billionsales

5.0 The extent of participation of women members in the women leadership development activities 5 sectors-Agriculture Credit, Dairy, Women Multi-purpose Societies, Large Adivasi Multi Purpose Societies(LAMPS) & Marketing. Initiatives for leadership development- compulsory 33% reservation quota for women members to represent on the Board Women’s Dairy Cooperative Leadership Programme & NCUI programme

Dairy and Agricultural Credit sector show encouraging trend WDCLP and STEP-conduct vocational training for their members like mat making, textile designing, catering, tailoring, bee raising, screen printing, beautician course, desk top publishing and thus nurtured a culture of innovation, learning and creativity (Dharmasthala, Idkidu and Punacha PACs,Puttur, Ujire and Sullia Women MPS and Potters Cottage Industrial Cooperative in Puttur).

Reasons for the poor participation in LAMPS, Women MPS- Poor exposure, Lack of education, subjugation and utter ignorance, apathy, inertia, abject poverty and existing resistance -susceptible to multiple deprivations. Disempowered in decision making and livelihood opportunities

Effect of Participation on Development of members From the correlation analysis it can be inferred that there exists a significant and a strong relationship between the participation of members in WLD activities and WLD indicators, both at 0.01 level and 0.05 level. This signifies that participation of women members will essentially increase the domain knowledge and make them cooperative conscious, upgrade their skill, enhance the general awareness, managerial competence, democratic involvement, and capability for self employment.

Suggestions Every primary cooperative should take the onus of leadership development of women members in letter and spirit. The Strategies devised in this study may be used by all the primary cooperatives Regular interacting, motivating and educating the small cooperative groups on principles and practice of cooperation Committee for the purpose of development of women members.

Conclusion There is no other peoples’ organization so potentially powerful and promising to build leadership through democratic process as Cooperative Movement. The role and relevance of cooperatives prove that they are fitting institutions for inclusive growth of underserved women masses and transform into. empowered and enlightened women leaders. This indeed necessitates the cooperative sector to initiate and reconcile social policy aiming at holistic development of women with the development process. Only then a large portion of the world’s poorest people living in India, under the cooperative fold, find the sustainable development and enjoy the sunshine of rising India.