GCMMF likely to give financial accounts deadline a miss
21 Jun 2010
Though the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has scheduled its requisite meeting on 30 June, according to observers, it is clear that the Rs8,000-crore apex marketing body of all the 13 district dairy unions of Gujarat will, for the first time in its history, fail to settle its annual accounts by that day.
The Times of India said in a report, quoting unnamed sources as saying that the only option for the co-operative society that markets the country's biggest brand Amul, is to approach the state government for a three-month extension.
As per the Co-operative Society Act, the annual accounts of the co-operative society have to be cleared by 30 June at the latest, within three months of the financial year closing, but with the murky political battles between the GCMMR chairman Parthi Bhatol and the rebel camp, which continues to demand Bhatol's resignation, there is no clarity on when the annual accounts would be cleared.
The audited financial year 2009-10 accounts were supposed to be cleared at the board meetings of 4 May and 25 May, but the meetings were adjourned as the majority of district dairy union chiefs abstained, demanding Bhatol's resignation.
Bhatol has all along insisted that the federation would seek the state government's permission to go ahead with the chartered accountant audited accounts for the time being. According to an unnamed official quoted in the report, now even if the state government were to permit to clear the accounts, a regular board meeting to clear the accounts cannot be called before 30 June as according to the federation bye-laws a 14-day notice needs to be served to directors before calling such a meeting.
Interestingly, even as a state minister recently said the government would not interfere in the ongoing dispute at the co-operative, it was thanks to the state government's move of appointing a government auditor at the federation that the issue of clearing annual accounts has got further complicated.
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