Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated 17th Indian Cooperative Congress on the theme ‘AmritKaal: Prosperity through Cooperation for a Vibrant India’ at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, today. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi also launched the e-commerce website for Cooperative Marketing and the Cooperative Extension and Advisory Service portal. Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah presided over the program and many dignitaries including Minister of State for Cooperation Shri BL Verma were present on the occasion.

In his address, Shri Amit Shah said that the cooperative movement is existing in India before independence and is about 115 years old. Since independence, the main demand of the workers associated with the cooperative sector was the formation of a separate Ministry of Cooperation. He said that earlier there were difficulties in expanding the cooperative sector, introducing timely changes, bringing transparency, and incorporating the global changes in cooperative sector in India. Shri Shah said that Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has formed a separate Ministry of Cooperation and fulfilled the demand which was pending for last 75 years. He said that due to the formation of the Ministry of Cooperation and the guidance from the Prime Minister, many changes have become made possible in the cooperative sector.

Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that National Cooperative Union of India is the apex organization of the cooperative sector and under the leadership of Shri Dileep Sanghani, the Cooperative Union has taken all the initiatives and changes from PACS to Apex through excellent coordination and efforts. He said that more than 100 years old cooperative movement in the country has achieved many milestones and has given a lot to the nation, but the cooperative sector waswitnessing a stagnation for the past 25-30 years. Shri Shah said that cooperative sector has a share of about 29% in agriculture credit distribution, 35% in fertilizer distribution, 25% in fertilizer production, 35% in sugar production, about 30% in spindle sector, almost 15% in milk production, procurement and sale, 13% in wheat procurement, and 20% in paddy procurement. He said that a lot of work has been done in the cooperative sector especially by the credit cooperative societies, housing cooperative societies, fisheries societies and cooperative banks to improve the livelihood of the poor section of the society.

Shri Amit Shah said that the Indian cooperative sector has its lots of expectations from this Cooperative Congress. He said that in this Cooperative Congress, we should take a pledge tomake more contribution in the development of nation during next 25 years of AmritKaal in comparison to contribution done during the last century. He said that now we must work towards connecting youth and women with cooperatives and try to improve the life of the poorest of the poor through cooperatives. Shri Shah said that after this Cooperative Congress, we should envision the development of cooperatives in a symmetric manner, and while a lot of work has already been done in this regard, lots more still remains to be accomplished. He said that we must incorporate newer areas in the cooperative sector. We have to accept  self-discipline and reforms in order to bring computerization, modernization and an openness in cooperatives.

Union Minister of Cooperation said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, many initiatives have been taken in the field of cooperatives in the country. He said that the Modi government has tried to bring equality in cooperative law under the constitutional framework without interfering with the rights of the states and the Centre. Shri Shah said that on the initiative of Shri Modi, the amendment in the Multistate Cooperative Societies Act has been suggested by the Parliamentary Committee with consensus and this law is going to come in the comingsession of parliament. He said that earlier laws forPACS were different across the country and in order to bring uniformity, the Ministry of Cooperation has prepared bylaws for PACS and sent them to all States and Union Territories as advisories. 26 States and Union Territories have accepted these bylaws and 85 percent PACS of the country will work under the same law after September this year. Shri Shah said that through this, Prime Minister Modi has made the PACS multidimensional which will make theirexpansion very easy. He said that we have also linked many activities with PACS, such as Common Service Centres, which will not only help in making PACS viable, but willalso make them the center of rural services. He said that we have also taken initiative in changing the retail outlets and recently the Prime Minister has also approved world’s biggest food grains storage scheme. Shri Shah said that with the success of this scheme, the share of cooperatives in the storage system will increase to more than 35% in the next 5 years.

Shri Amit Shah said that we have created a database of cooperatives across the country and 90% work has been completed, through which we will identify the vacuum and will do the expansion. He said that at present there are 85,000 PACS in the country. There will be PACS in every panchayat of the countryin the next 3 years which means 3 lakh PACS will come into existence in the country and theywill strengthen the cooperative sector. He added that the Prime Minister has also given approval to the cooperatives societies to register as buyer on the GEM platform. Shri Shah said that injustice was done to cooperatives under the income taxlaw for decades and they did not get equality at par with companies, but Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi removed all the inequalities in one go and gave cooperatives equal status with companies, which is going to provide huge benefit in the coming days. He said that Prime Minister Modi has settled the long pending tax dispute of sugar mills ofworth Rs. 15,000 crore through an Act and has made such arrangements that there should be no tax disputes in future. He said that along with the database, we also want to create a cooperative policy which will work for the expansion of cooperatives during the AmritKal. He added that we are moving forward by giving a lot of thrust on training and transparency. Shri Shah said that we have started inter-ministerial discussion to set up Cooperative University. This will help in modernizing our training system up to Tehsilunder National Cooperative Union of India and through a single curriculum,we will have experts in many fields of cooperatives. He said that there are about 630 training institutes working in the cooperative sector in the countrytoday, using them as an extension, the Cooperative University will work smoothly and uniformity in the course will speed up the cooperative movement across the country.

The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi completely understands the needs of the Ministry of Cooperation and due to his guidance in every initiative many changes have come in the cooperative sector. He expressed confidence that we will be able to realize Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s  vision of “Sahkar Se Samridhi”. Prime Minister Shri Modi has given many facilities to the people living below the poverty line and now this class hascome out of the struggle for their basic amenities and is looking forward to their future with hope. He said that this section does not have capital, but we will definitely do the work of collection of their small capital and make this a big capitalthrough cooperatives and connect them tothe enterprise. He said that the cooperative sector itself will have to accept transparency and change, it is difficult but not impossible and if we succeed in doing this, then the cooperative movement of the whole country will get a big boost. Shri Shah said that this tenure of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will be written in golden letters in the history of cooperative sector.

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