Under the Cooperative Act 2074, membership was initially restricted to one cooperative institution per year; this duration has now been extended to two years. Despite this, issues of dual membership and holding director positions in multiple cooperatives persist, and full enforcement of the act remains elusive. Through the Cooperative Ordinance 2083, the government has extended the period for dual membership to two years, but clarity regarding penalties for holding dual director positions is still lacking.
As of 24 Baishakh in Kathmandu, cooperative members are now permitted to maintain membership in multiple cooperatives for up to two years. When the Cooperative Act 2074 was implemented, membership was limited to one cooperative per year to control multiple memberships by the same individual. This regulation, effective from Kartik 2074, gave a one-year deadline to comply. However, nearly eight years after the act’s implementation, individuals with memberships in multiple cooperatives have again been granted a two-year period to retain membership in only one institution.
Activists within the cooperative sector acknowledge that despite the Cooperative Act being in place, the sector continues to face challenges due to ineffective enforcement. Although the act prohibits holding memberships and director positions in more than one cooperative, it has yet to be fully implemented. “It has been approximately eight years since the act was enacted,” stated one activist, “yet dual memberships and multiple director positions still persist.” They emphasize that treating the act merely as a formal document has complicated these issues further. Failures to enforce even the most basic provisions of the act have naturally led to governance problems within cooperatives.
The original enforcement period for compliance was one year when the act was first introduced. The government’s recent Cooperative Act Amendment Ordinance 2083 has extended this period to two years. This two-year extension applies solely to the regulation concerning individual membership in multiple cooperatives. However, the ordinance does not provide any additional clarity regarding the issue of holding multiple director roles.
