Cooperatives should foster youth entrepreneurship, says Minister Ale

Kathmandu, Mar. 1

Minister for Forest and Environment Prem Bahadur Ale has expressed his commitment to amending the laws that hinder cooperative entrepreneurship.

Spekaing at a 2-day national seminar on Youth inclusion in cooperatives, organised by National Cooperative Federation (NCF) in Lalitpur on Monday, he said, "I will take initiative to change the legal provisions that create hurdles in the promotion of cooperative entrepreneurship. I will meet Prime Minister  KP Sharma Oli at the earliest to discuss the issue."

He added that the government had taken cooperatives seriously and assured enough attention for its development.

According to him, the ministry was going to introduce a policy provision to implement herbs farming programme through the cooperatives.

He also said that entreprenuers could be sustained if youth could be connected to forests and environement sector through cooperatives. "I am open to discuss with the cooperatives about connecting the youth in the coopertives to the forest sector. The government is ready to address the challenges cooperatives are facing in development of youth entrepreneurship," he said.

Chairman of NCF Minraj Kadel stated that cooperatives had contribution to alleviating poverty and hunger. "We are launching a campaign to enhance cooperatives’ contribution to creating youth self-employment," he said.

Immediate past chairman of the NCF Keshab Badal stressed the need for increasing the capacity of cooperatives to create youth entrpreneurship because development of the country was possible only through the creative entrepreneurship.

Coordinator of the Youth Committee at the NCF, Sagar Dhakal, said that although it was easy to run business privately, it was difficult to do the same from cooperatives.

He recommended the government to create policy allowing the cooperatives to mobilise project-based loans.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 2 March 2021.