NCUI inks pact with Unnat Bharat Abhiyan

The National Cooperative Union of India, (NCUI), an apex organisation representing the entire cooperative movement in the country, signed a MoU with Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) to further its agenda of cross-sectoral collaboration for empowering cooperatives and realising the vision of 'Sahkaar Se Samriddhi'. The MoU was inked in the presence of Dileep Sanghani, President, NCUI, Dr. Chandrapal Singh Yadav, President, ICA-AP and Dr. Bijendra Singh, Chairman, NAFED and Vice-Chairman, NCUI.

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) is a flagship programme launched by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, in 2014 with a mission to enable higher educational institutions to work with the people of rural India in identifying development challenges and evolving appropriate solutions for accelerating sustainable growth. It also aims to create a virtuous cycle between society and an inclusive academic system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors in responding to the development needs of rural India.

Currently, UBA has a network of over 3600 colleges and 18,000 villages across India. Through the collaboration, NCUI in association with UBA will conduct research and development work to identify the key challenges and corresponding solutions of farmers and cooperatives and utilise the power of technology and innovative processes for entrepreneurship development among the needy sections of society in general and the villages adopted under UBA in particular.

Both organisations will devise strategies and processes for promoting natural farming, including millet production among the farmers and promote sustainable lifestyle and nature-friendly measures for conservation of ecology and identify, groom and promote suitable indigenous products, processes and traditional skills of artisans for income enhancement and potential replication.

NCUI and UBA will also work together to form new cooperatives in emerging areas of economy by engaging youth and women in their network. UBA will promote cooperative identity among the students for the formation of campus and other types of cooperatives. NCUI will benefit from the technical resource of UBA to identify and promote low-cost and efficient production and processing technologies in the interest of the artisans and cooperatives. Efforts will be made to establish centres of excellence for research and demonstration of successful technological innovations in areas of rural development and organise national and regional-level workshops too.

Post signing of MoU, Prof. V K Vijay, National Coordinator, UBA explained the recent initiatives and achievements of UBA to President, NCUI and also discussed some of the key interventions being planned to be executed in collaboration with Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Cooperation of NCUI in the near future.