Managerial Grant to Tribal Service Cooperative Societies

What is the Managerial Grant to Tribal Service Cooperative Societies?

Managerial Grant to Tribal Service Cooperative Societies is a small institutional support scheme of the Department of Cooperation, Government of Chhattisgarh, run by the Commissioner Cooperation and Registrar of Cooperative Societies.

The Cooperation Department states the problem the scheme addresses plainly. In predominantly Scheduled Tribe areas, Primitive Tribe Agricultural Credit Cooperative Societies implement a range of government welfare schemes on the state's behalf. Doing that work costs money: staff salaries, office running costs, record keeping, travel across scattered hamlets, and in thin, low-volume tribal markets the business a society does is often too small to cover that managerial burden. The result is a society that is administratively essential but financially loss-making.

Managerial Grant to Tribal Service Cooperative Societies exists to keep such societies financially sustainable. It is a grant to the institution, released into the society's own bank account, and is not a benefit any individual can claim.

How much is the grant and what are the conditions?

Two conditions define the scheme's character, and both are worth reading twice.

The loss threshold and the grant ceiling are the same number. A society must have lost more than Rs 10,000 in the previous year to qualify, and the most it can receive is Rs 10,000. A society with a Rs 6,000 loss does not qualify at all; a society with a Rs 4 lakh loss still gets Rs 10,000.

The three-year bar makes this a one-off. A society that receives this aid will not be eligible for additional assistance for the next three years. That rules out any expectation of the grant functioning as an annual operating subsidy, and it is the reason societies are advised to time their claim to a year in which the loss is genuine and documented rather than claiming at the first opportunity.

Who is eligible for the managerial grant?

A society can apply if:

• It is a Primitive Tribe Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society registered under the Chhattisgarh Co-operative Societies Act, 1960.
• It operates in a predominantly Scheduled Tribe area of Chhattisgarh.
• Its audited accounts for the previous year show a loss exceeding Rs 10,000.
• It has not received this grant in the preceding three years.
• It is functioning and its managing committee can pass a valid resolution to claim the grant.

Who cannot apply, or is not eligible:

• Individual farmers, members or society employees cannot apply. This is an institutional grant and no part of it is distributed to individuals. Anyone offering to "get you Rs 10,000 from the tribal society scheme" is describing something that does not exist.
• Societies that are not Primitive Tribe Agricultural Credit Cooperative Societies, including ordinary PACS outside tribal areas, marketing societies and consumer societies.
• Societies in profit, or with a previous-year loss of Rs 10,000 or less.
• Societies that received the grant within the last three years.
• Societies whose annual audit is not complete, since the audited loss figure is the only evidence the scheme accepts.

What documents does a society need?

How to apply for the managerial grant

1. Complete the society's statutory annual audit for the previous year, since the audited loss figure above Rs 10,000 is the only eligibility evidence the department accepts.
2. Pass a managing committee resolution authorising the claim, recording the audited loss and naming the office bearer who will sign the application.
3. Prepare the claim file with the audited accounts, the registration certificate, the statement of managerial expenditure, the three-year non-receipt declaration and the society's bank account details.
4. Submit the file to the district Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies for your district and take a dated receipt.
5. Respond to the Deputy Registrar's scrutiny, which checks the audit figure, the society's classification and the three-year bar against departmental records.
6. Await sanction from the Commissioner Cooperation and Registrar of Cooperative Societies, after which the grant is released to the society's bank account.

There is no online portal for this scheme and no application fee. The route is entirely through the department's district office.

How a society checks the status of its claim

• At the district Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies office, quoting the claim receipt, for scrutiny and forwarding status.
• At the divisional office, Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Jagdalpur or Sarguja, for a claim held up above the district level.
• On the eRCS Chhattisgarh portal at states.ercs.nic.in/chhattisgarh, which carries Registrar of Cooperative Societies records for societies in the state.
• Through the society's own bank account, where the sanctioned grant appears as a credit from the department.

Why claims get rejected

• Loss below the threshold. A previous-year loss of exactly Rs 10,000 or less fails the test, which requires a loss of more than Rs 10,000.
• Audit not completed, so the loss cannot be evidenced.
• Wrong society classification. A society that is not registered as a Primitive Tribe Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society does not qualify, however tribal its membership.
• Grant already taken within three years, which is checked against departmental records regardless of what the society declares.
• Managing committee resolution missing or improperly passed, which invalidates the claim's authority.
• Society under supersession or with an unresolved audit objection, which normally has to be settled before a grant is sanctioned.

Related support a tribal service society should know about

Given how small this grant is, a society facing a structural deficit should look at the Cooperation Department's larger instruments alongside it:

• Share purchase grant for SC and ST members — Rs 500 per member, credited directly into the share capital account, capped at Rs 50,000 per society per financial year, to widen membership and credit access among small and marginal SC and ST farmers.
• Upgradation of PACS to multi-purpose cooperative societies, a grant of Rs 10 lakh against a project costing up to Rs 25 lakh, so the society can take on non-traditional business and earn additional income. This is given only once to an eligible society and is the single most useful route out of chronic loss-making.
• Digitisation of PACS. A centrally sponsored project running 2022-23 to 2026-27 at Rs 3.91 lakh per society, shared 60 per cent Centre and 40 per cent State, which reduces record-keeping cost.
• One-time grant of Rs 50,000 per society to the 725 newly formed PACS restructured in 2020, for operational and office setup expenses.
• Warehouse construction with NABARD assistance, where societies in the Sarguja and Bastar divisions contribute only 10 per cent against 90 per cent state assistance, compared with 20:80 in other divisions.
• Share capital investment by the state in PACS and cooperative banks to raise borrowing capacity.

Key facts to remember

• Grant: maximum Rs 10,000 per society.
• Test: previous-year loss of more than Rs 10,000, from audited accounts.
• Bar: no further assistance for three years after receiving it.
• Beneficiary: the society, never an individual member.
• Route: district Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies, offline.
• Legal basis: Chhattisgarh Co-operative Societies Act, 1960.

Where to complain

• District Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies, listed division-wise on coop.cg.gov.in, as the first point of escalation.
• Commissioner Cooperation and Registrar of Cooperative Societies, headquarters Raipur; 0771-2511920; the Additional Commissioner's office is on 0771-2511923.
• Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Tribunal, funded by the department for judicial resolution of cooperative disputes.
• CM Helpline 1076 for a general Chhattisgarh government grievance.

No fee is payable to any official for processing a managerial grant claim, and the sanctioned amount is credited only to the society's registered bank account.