Amit Shah bats for changes and transparency in cooperatives

Union home and cooperation minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said that there is a need to bring changes in the cooperative sector. "We will have to change, else people will change us," he told top officials of cooperatives present during the online launch of the onboarding of cooperatives on the government's e-marketplace (GeM) platform.

Shah further emphasised on bringing transparency in all spheres of the cooperative sector, particularly in three areas, including the election process. "The election process should be transparent. We would like to bring change in this. It is not right for the same person to get elected year after year. This arrangement is not good," the minister said.

Shah said he himself has been a chairman of PACS for the last 25 years and it will be changed this year. Moreover, he said there is a need to bring transparency in the recruitment process and the ministry is framing rules for this.

He added, "Till 2014, the population of the country was 130 crores but the market was only 60 crores because the rest of the people had no buying power. The entire day of the 60 crore people of the country was spent worrying about arranging food and other daily essentials and many generations suffered this. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi (who was elected for the first time in 2014) gave bank accounts, gas cylinders, toilets, electricity to the poor."