Q.Explain any four important functions of a service co-operative society.

The question wants a handful of the society's functions explained, not merely named — pick the most important ones and add a sentence of explanation to each.

The society's leading functions are advancing cheap credit to members, supplying seeds/fertilizers/implements at fair prices, distributing daily consumer goods, providing storage godowns, and helping members market their produce collectively.

A service (village multipurpose) co-operative society performs several functions for its members. Any four of the following, explained, form a full answer:

1. Provision of credit. This is usually the most important function. The society advances short-term and medium-term loans to members — for seeds, fertilizers, implements, and cultivation expenses — at fair, moderate rates of interest, funding this from members' deposits and loans from the District Central Co-operative Bank. In doing so it frees the small farmer from the high-interest village moneylender.

2. Supply of agricultural inputs. The society buys seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and small implements in bulk and distributes them to members at fair prices. Bulk buying secures a lower price and assured quality that an individual small farmer could not obtain alone.

3. Supply of consumer goods. Many societies run a fair-price store distributing essential daily goods — foodgrains, sugar, edible oil, kerosene, cloth — to members at fair prices, protecting them from adulteration, short weight, and profiteering.

4. Storage and warehousing. The society provides godown facilities so a member can safely store his harvested produce and wait for a better price, instead of being forced to sell immediately at a low post-harvest rate. This also reduces losses from moisture and pests.

5. Marketing of members' produce. The society helps members sell their produce collectively (or links them to a marketing co-operative), giving them better bargaining power and a fairer price than individual selling would.

6. Other welfare and developmental services. It may also hire out machinery, spread improved farming methods, provide co-operative education, and promote thrift among members.

Merely LISTING functions without explaining them loses marks in a 'explain' question — add at least one sentence of explanation to each. Also avoid inventing grand functions (like manufacturing machinery) that are beyond a small village society's scale.