Dharamsala, February 28: The secretaries of the Tibetan Co-operative Societies and general managers of units of the Federation of Tibetan Co-operative in India (FTCI) are in Dharamsala, exploring methods to upgrade their agricultural and handicraft products to meet the growing demands in the export marts.
A two-day seminar-cum-workshop – ‘Export Readiness’, organised by FTCI began yesterday at the Gangkyi staff mess in Dharamsala. The workshop is funded by Netherlands-based Fair Trade Original (FTO).
Kalon Tripa Samdhong Rinpoche in his opening address said: ” Under the 12th Kashag, policies and guidelines were formulated to lay strong emphasis to make cooperatives more self reliant.”
He further said: “The Department of Home has been spending a large amount of money to train Tibetans in cooperative management in order to establish sustainable and self-reliant cooperatives.”
He underlined that special emphasis on appointing cooperative secretaries, who have training and expertise in cooperative management should be strengthened.
During the seminar, agendas including, importance of roles and responsibilities of cooperative secretaries, quality management of products and importance of Co-operative Society were discussed.
FTCI is a registered independent body formed in April 2005, which is composed of 15 Tibetan co-operatives.
The federal body aims to make the settlements viable by promoting the interests of all its individual members to attain their social and economic betterment through self-reliance and mutual help in accordance with the co-operative principles.
It facilitates member co-operative societies with agricultural inputs, tractor ploughing, consumer store, telephone services, milk diary, flour mills, carpet and handicrafts, marketing agricultural produce, rice mills.
