Dev Gurung says cooperatives have drifted from productive investment

Kathmandu, September 20, 2026 — Nepal Communist Party leader Dev Gurung has said cooperatives have run into trouble because many have focused mainly on savings and lending while investing in unproductive sectors.

Speaking at the launch of the book The Web of Cooperative Fraud, written by Manoj Bhatt, on Sunday, Gurung said most cooperatives had been involved in real estate transactions.

He said the cooperative sector in Nepal had moved away from its original concept, claiming that around 65 percent of cooperative institutions were focused solely on savings and credit transactions.

According to Gurung, cooperatives have increasingly operated on microfinance or semi-banking models, weakening investment in productive sectors.

He stressed the need for cooperatives to increase investment in productive areas, saying their investments have not been sufficiently focused on agriculture, cottage industries and industrial production.

Gurung claimed that around 40 to 50 percent of total cooperative lending had gone into real estate, which he described as unproductive investment. He said only around 10 to 15 percent of cooperative investment had gone into agricultural production.

He said around 30 to 35 percent of investment had gone into service-oriented sectors, while cooperative investment in the industrial sector stood at only around 0.85 percent.

Gurung said the state should ensure markets for goods produced by cooperatives to support the development of production-based cooperatives.