The different types of cooperative societies are
(i) Consumer’s Cooperative Societies They protect the interests of consumers as their aim is
eliminating middlemen to achieve economy in operations and provide good quality products at reasonable prices. They purchase goods in bulk directly from the wholesalers and sell goods to the members. ‘
(ii) Producer’s Cooperative Societies They are formed to protect the interest of small producers and are set up to provide the supplying of raw materials, equipment and other inputs to the members and buying their output for sale. Profits among the members are distributed on the basis of their contributions to the society.
(iii) Marketing Cooperative Societies They help the small producers who wish to obtain reasonable prices for their output and want to market their products. Their members jointly perform marketing functions like transportation, warehousing, packaging, etc to sell the output at the best possible price and profits are distributed according to each member’s * contribution to the pool of output.
(iv) Farmer’s Cooperative Societies They comprise farmers as members who jointly take up farming activities to gain the benefits of large scale farming and increase the productivity. Such societies provide better quality seeds, fertilisers, machinery and other modem techniques to member farmers.
(v) Credit’ Cooperative Societies They are formed for providing easy credit on reasonable terms to the members. They provide loans at low rates to members out of the amounts collected as capital and deposits from the members thereby eliminating exploitation by moneylenders.
(vi) Cooperative Housing Societies They help people with low ineome to construct houses at
reasonable costs and giving them the option of paying in instalments. They construct flats or ’ provide plots to members for construction of houses.