Fulfilling a long-standing demand of the cooperative sector, Narendra Modi govt, in a historic move, created a new ‘Ministry of Cooperation’ Tuesday evening. The news spread like a wild fire among the co-operators who went euphoric at the news across the states.
The ministry will have a separate administrative, legal and policy framework to strengthen the cooperative movement in the country. It will also help deepen cooperatives as a true people-based movement reaching upto the grassroots, said govt sources.
As soon as the news broke, several co-operators phoned as well as sent their reactions to Indian Cooperative. Satish Marathe, one of the first to phone this correspondent said “Do you know that Sahakar Bharati’s February resolution demanding a separate ministry for cooperation has been greenlighted today evening by the Prime Minister? Marathe was visibly very happy.
Uday Joshi, Sahakar Bharati General Secretary said that a Sahakar Bharati delegation had met the Prime Minister requesting him to create a separate ministry. He thanked the PM for this historic move.
GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi was also awake till late night and shared his happiness with us on the news. Later he forwarded his tweet in which he said “It’s a revolutionary step by @PMOIndia recognising the role cooperatives can play in creating big businesses by small holders/farmers /workers/traders.”
Jyotindra Mehta, Patron of Sahakar Bharati also thanked Modi profusely and said the move would unlease the potential of co-op sector. “A long demand of Sahakar Bharati has been met”, he added.
The creation of a new ministry comes a day ahead of the much-awaited cabinet reshuffle. India today boasts more than 8 lac co-op bodies with a membership base of about 35 crore people.
IFFCO was also quick to react to the news as its PR Head Harshendra Verdhan lost no time in forwarding a PTI take on the subject to us, which read “The ministry will work to streamline processes for ‘Ease of doing business’ for co-operatives and enable development of Multi-State Co-operatives (MSCS).”
