New Delhi
Inaugurating the country's first cooperative conference in New Delhi on September 25, Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister and first Minister of Cooperation, said that the government will bring a new cooperative policy in order to strengthen the cooperatives in the country. He said that his ministry would take up the work of taking cooperative societies to the grassroots level.
Shah said at the National Cooperative Conference — the biggest event since the formation of the Ministry — that he was proud that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given him the opportunity to be the first Cooperative Minister. The Ministry of Cooperation, he said, will run in cooperation with all the states and has not been created to be in conflict with any state.
The basic mantra of this Ministry is to achieve prosperity up to the grassroots level through cooperatives, said Shah.
Shah was addressing more than two thousand cooperative members present in the stadium and about 60 million people connected through social media. He appreciated the world's first nano liquid urea manufactured by IFFCO, the world's number one cooperative, and said that it would bring a big change in the agriculture sector.
About the historical importance of the cooperative movement, Shah said, “I have been associated with the cooperative movement for 25 years. Whenever any calamity has hit the country, cooperative movements have taken the country out. Cooperative banks have been working for the people without being overly led by the profit objective only because of the cooperation culture of India.”
Giving the example of Amul and Lijjat, Shah said that while crores of farmers of the country are associated with Amul, thousands of women have got employment from Lijjat Papad. There is now a need to strengthen the cooperative in the country through the modernization of the cooperatives.
Sharing plans of his Ministry, Shah also announced that the Centre would soon amend the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act, 2002 to facilitate the functioning of the multi-state cooperative societies.
Observing that 63,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) are not sufficient to cater to the needs of six lakh villages, Shah said, “We will set a target to establish a PACS in every second village in the coming five years. To increase the number of PACS from 65,000 to 3 lakh, the Ministry of Cooperation will prepare a proper legal framework that will be advisory in nature. We will send it to the state governments. States can make changes in their laws.”
Shah said, “We have decided to come out with a new cooperative policy which was first brought by Atal ji in 2002 and now Modi ji will be bringing it in 2022. We will begin the process of making (the) new cooperative policy during this Amrit festival of Independence.”
Stating the importance of cooperatives' contribution to the development of the country, Shah said that 91 per cent of villages in India had cooperatives. He emphasized the fact that cooperative was needed for India to be a $5-trillion economy. He also said that cooperatives were for the development of the poor and backward with close to 36 lakh crore families being associated with cooperatives. He also said that IFFCO had worked to give a new direction to the country’s poor.
BL Verma, Minister of State for Cooperation; Dr Ariel Guarco, President of International Cooperative Alliance (Global); Sardar Balwinder Singh, Chairman of IFFCO; Uday Shankar Awasthi, Managing Director of IFFCO; Devendra Kumar Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation; and Chandrapal Singh Yadav, Chairman of Kribhco, were among those who attended the event.