The cooperative system that was put into operation in the country as a result of the recommendations of the Committee of Direction of the Rural Credit Survey in the middle of the 1950s has, after a couple of decades of positive results, run into difficulties and steadily declined. Many administrators and others in discussions blame that committee and D R Gadgil in particular for the scheme where the state was made a partner in the cooperative enterprise, resulting in rigid mechanical procedures, heavy subsidies - overt or implicit - and bureaucratisation on the one hand and politicisation on the other. How objective and fair is this assessment?
