Kerala State Co-operative Consumers’ Federation Ltd (“Consumerfed”) is the Apex body of Consumer Co-operatives in the State serving the people of the State through its varied activities for about five decades. Consumerfed mainly focus its operations for keeping stability in open market prices, even though it has other activities such as sale of medicine at the lowest price, distribution of cooking gas, manufacture and distribution of quality notebooks for students, all under own brand name “Triveni” and “Neethi”. “Triveni Supermarkets” started by Consumerfed are the pioneers of its kind in Kerala. To cope up with modern trends, we have formulated and implemented many innovative ideas such as Floating and Mobile Triveni, Modern Cafeteria etc. “Nanma Store Scheme”, the Co-operative Public Distribution System (CPDS) is the latest addition to our welfare activities.

Consumerfed acts as the main agency for implementation of many of the social welfare schemes of the State Government. It include the ‘Neethi Store Scheme’ through which essential daily requirements of food items are distributed at moderate prices through ‘Neethi Stores’ run by primary societies mainly in rural areas. Subsidy sale of essential food items is mainly done under this scheme.

In 1998 we have started the sale of medicines under the Government scheme called “Neethi Medical Scheme”. Medicines are sold in the Neethi Medical Stores up to 40% below MRP, justifying its name “Neethi”. At present there are about 500 Neethi Medical stores including 95 stores run by Consumerfed. We are working on to increase the number of Neethi Medical Stores to 1,000, so that all the panchayaths in the State will have at least one Neethi Medical Store.

At present the State is having shortage of authorized institutions which provides Diploma in Pharmacy. In the Co-operative sector there are no such institutions. As a result, the Co-operatives in Kerala, including Consumerfed are finding it difficult to start the Neethi Medical Stores due to non-availability of qualified pharmacists. Thrissur, the central district of Kerala is not having a single pharmacy institute conducting D.Pharm course. We think it is high time to start one such institute at Thrissur, for the benefit of the student community in general and the co-operatives who want to start Neethi Medical Stores, in particular.