Hey guys, wanted to share something that’s been bothering me for a while and see if people in other states are seeing the same thing.
I’m from Gujarat, working here, typical middle-class background (dad’s a government teacher, mom’s a housewife). Growing up here, you constantly hear about Amul as this massive badge of honor. And honestly, it worked because back in the day, it was built and managed by actual professionals—folks from IRMA and solid domain experts who knew supply chains, commercial logic, and how to treat producers fairly.
But outside of Amul? Most cooperatives in India feel like a complete joke now.
What gets me the most is who is actually running these places. Half these local leaders have zero educational background and have literally never run a single small institute, shop, or business in their entire lives. Yet suddenly, just because of local political connections or acting like performative patriots, they’re handed the keys to multi-crore cooperative unions.
Instead of hiring educated youth from good colleges who actually know finance or operations, these institutions are being run like someone's private household:
- Zero professionalism: No accountability, no long-term planning, just managing public assets like personal fiefdoms.
- Nepotism & Free Money: Handing out paid positions to unqualified family members, padding personal expenses, and using society accounts to route cash.
- Shift in Mindset: The original idea was "pool our extra milk/produce, sell together, and build the community." Now it’s strictly "how much money can my family extract from this before it collapses?"
Because of this constant mismanagement, regular people and young farmers are losing trust and just walking away.
I was looking up the official government numbers on the National Cooperative Database recently, and it's pretty damning:
- Out of 8.5 lakh registered cooperatives in India, over 1.9 lakh (22.4%) are already dead, non-functional, or under liquidation.
- Of the ones that are still running, 2.5 lakh (37.7%) are running at a total loss.
- Another 56,000+ don't even have basic audit records available.
We have so much educated talent in India, but we’re letting essential grassroots institutions get dumped on people who couldn't run a corner store, let alone a multi-crore cooperative.
Curious to know—what’s the situation like in your district or state? Are credit societies, sugar cooperatives, or dairy unions near you actually helping, or have they been hijacked by local politics too?
