Knews Desk- Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah has made a big announcement to strengthen the cooperative sector in the country, saying that a cooperative life insurance company will soon be established. This initiative will be based on the cooperative model and aims to give a more active and powerful role to the cooperative institutions across the country in the insurance sector.
Speaking at a program organized on the occasion of the fifth foundation day of the Ministry of Cooperation in the national capital, Amit Shah said that this new cooperative life insurance company will work on the lines of “Bharat Taxi” model. He said that its aim is to directly benefit more than 8.5 lakh cooperative institutions of the country and their more than 30 crore members. Shah said that the cooperative sector cannot be limited to traditional sectors only, but it has to be taken forward by linking it with the modern economic structure.
Referring to the history of the cooperative movement in his address, Amit Shah said that earlier this sector did not get the expected importance, but due to the efforts of the present government, new energy has been brought to it. He claimed that in the last few years, the Ministry of Cooperation has taken several steps to bring transparency and professionalism in the sector, the results of which are now visible.
He said that a detailed database of cooperative institutions in the country has been prepared, which is helping in their operation and expansion. In addition, Tribhuvan Cooperative University is being established in Anand, Gujarat, with the aim of producing skilled human resources for the cooperative sector. Shah said that cooperatives are no longer limited to just dairy, sugar or fertilizers, but are expanding into many new areas.
At the event, Shah also said that co-operative taxi service ‘Bharat Taxi’ is performing well and there are plans to expand it to 500 cities in the coming two years. He said that the cooperative model can become an effective medium of economic inclusion, which will greatly benefit small farmers, youth and rural entrepreneurs. On this occasion, the Union Minister also mentioned the achievements of the cooperative sector. He said that the aim of the government is not to interfere in the rights of the states, but to strengthen the cooperative mechanism at the policy level. He also said that in the last five years, no state has complained that the Center has interfered in their jurisdiction.
Many other important projects were also launched during the program. These included transfer of 135 warehouses with capacity of 75,000 tonnes, inauguration of 85 new warehouses and virtual foundation stone laying of 47 grain storage projects. Along with this, Bhoomi Pujan of ‘Sahakar Van’ project and many new programs related to seed cooperative society were also started by Amul and NCCF.
The government has also taken steps towards converting 50,000 primary agricultural cooperative societies into e-packs, thereby enabling digitalization of cooperative institutions at the village level. Apart from this, an MoU was also signed between the Indian Seed Cooperative Society and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research to strengthen the seed system. In this program, the Ministry of Cooperation reiterated its commitment to make the cooperative sector a strong pillar of the economic development of the country keeping in mind the goal of ‘Developed India’ by 2047.
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