Q.The primary aim of a service co-operative society is to:

The very name of the organisation points to what sets it apart from an ordinary business firm — it exists to serve, not to maximise profit.

A co-operative is a self-help body formed by its own members for their mutual benefit; any surplus it earns is a by-product of good management, not the object of the society. Profit-maximisation (a), aggressive competition (c), and public money-lending for the highest return (d) all describe profit-seeking businesses, not a service co-operative.

Why (b) is correct: A service co-operative society is a voluntary association of persons — usually of a village — formed on co-operative principles to make available to its own members the essential services they need (credit, farm inputs, consumer goods, storage, and marketing) at fair, non-exploitative prices. The dominant motive throughout is service to members, and this is exactly what option (b) states.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• (a) describes a profit-seeking company. In a co-operative, profit-maximisation is not the aim; any surplus is used to strengthen the society and benefit members, and control rests on 'one member, one vote', not on the size of a shareholding.
• (c) wrongly casts the society as a competitor bent on destroying private traders. Its purpose is to protect its members from exploitation and to serve their needs, not to wage a trade war on rivals.
• (d) describes a profit-driven finance business lending to the public at the highest return. A service society lends chiefly to its own members at fair, moderate rates, to free them from high-interest moneylenders — the opposite of lending for maximum return.

Students sometimes assume that because a society deals in credit, inputs, and goods, it must be aiming at profit like any shop or bank. The deciding test is the MOTIVE: a co-operative's dominant object is service to members and mutual benefit, with surplus a secondary by-product — not profit-maximisation.