Q.Explain the powers and functions of the Commissioner for Co-operation.

As Commissioner, the officer is concerned with the co-operative movement as a whole, not with the day-to-day handling of any single society.

This makes his role policy-making, controlling, and promotional, in contrast to the Registrar's case-by-case regulatory role.

As Commissioner for Co-operation, the officer is the highest authority of the Co-operation Department and is chiefly concerned with the administration, direction, and promotion of the co-operative movement as a whole in Maharashtra, rather than with the routine handling of individual societies (which is largely the Registrar's regulatory work). His powers and functions may be grouped under three heads: administrative, supervisory or quasi-judicial, and developmental.

On the administrative side, the Commissioner exercises overall superintendence, direction, and control over all the subordinate registrars and the offices of the department throughout the State. He assigns areas and classes of societies to the various officers, controls and transfers the departmental staff, and ensures that the powers of the Registrar are exercised uniformly and fairly in every district. He is responsible for the smooth functioning of the department as a whole and for co-ordinating its work with the State Government, so that the Government's policy for the co-operative sector is actually carried out on the ground.

On the supervisory and quasi-judicial side, because the Commissioner sits at the top of the departmental hierarchy, he is the highest authority within the department over the acts and orders of the subordinate registrars. He guides and controls how the statutory powers of registration, audit, inquiry, and supervision are used; issues circulars and instructions to bring about consistency in their exercise; and, where the Act so provides, hears and decides appeals or revisions against the orders of subordinate officers. In this way he ensures that the important powers of the Registrar are not misused and are applied consistently across the State.

On the developmental side — which is the very reason the post is titled "Commissioner for Co-operation" and not merely "Registrar" — he plans and promotes the growth of the co-operative movement. He advises the Government on co-operative policy and on amendments to the co-operative law, encourages co-operative education and training so that members and office-bearers understand co-operative working, takes steps to strengthen weak or dormant societies, and works to extend co-operation into new areas of economic life. Taken together, these functions show that the Commissioner's role is essentially policy-making, controlling, and promotional for the movement as a whole, whereas the Registrar's role is regulatory and case-by-case for individual societies.