Elevated as Secretary from the position of Central Registrar in the Ministry of Cooperation in less than 10 years, Ashish Bhutani the new Secretary discovers a paradigm shift in both the working and goals of the Cooperation Ministry.
Speaking informally in a select gathering of Ministry officials and the who’s who of the cooperative sector, Bhutani said “I remember our efforts to bring an amendment in the MSCS Act during 2011-12. The scale of the proposed amendment was so small at that time. What has been passed finally, is a piece of brilliant legislation”, said Bhutani adding the Indian cooperative scene has indeed undergone and is undergoing a transformation of sorts.
The event was organized by Sahakar Bharati led by its President D N Thakur. Thakur was making good use of his past connections when he was a Ministry official and his present role as Sahakar Bharati President to assemble on one platform several well-known personalities of the cooperative world.
Aimed at facilitating former Secretary Gyanesh Kumar for his stellar performance in the Ministry and welcoming the incumbent Ashish Bhuatani, the Sahakar Bharati event was attended by several top leaders including Dileep Sanghani, Dr U S Awasthi, Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, Bijender Singh, Jyotindra Mehta with Nafcub’s newly elected President Laxmi Das and several board members, among others.
Besides Thakur, the Sahakar Bharati team was pretty strong with Uday Joshi, Sanjay Pachpor and many officials of its Delhi Chapter present on this occasion.
In his remarks, D N Thakur said that it is the aim of Sahakar Bharati to offer a platform to cooperators cuttingacross party lines and act as a bridge between them and the Ministry. We are a selfless body working with a pious intention of strengthening the roots of the cooperative movement in the country, Thakur said.
Gyanesh Kumar, also spoke briefly on the occasion and said that these 2-3 years of his long career were the
most satisfying years as he could feel that decisions taken at the ministry could impact the lives of crores of the people. “There is much yet to do but we could deliver what was possible in the given time, following the guidelines of our Minister”, said Kumar in whose tenure more than 54 groundbreaking new initiatives were launched by the Ministry.
Later, referring to Kumar, the new Secretary Ashish Bhautani said that “Sir has set a benchmark, following which would be a challenge for me; the professional approach of his team was obvious when they were giving me briefing on the ministry’s activities after I took over”, he said.
In his brief address, Kumar sketched the vastness of the Indian cooperative movement saying that India houses 25% of global co-ops and has about 30 crore cooperators, a figure which exceeds the population of all countries except USA and China. “We are already a Vishwa Guru in the Cooperative Sector”, he added.
IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi lauded the Ministry’s multiple initiatives. Awasthi said that the world’s largest storage being built in India has wowed many. “The pace of growth in the co-op sector in the last 3-4 years has indeed been striking and I had never seen anything of this kind in my 40 years of experience in the sector. Awasthi also referred to the patenting of Nano Urea and said that Nano was developed keeping in mind the PM’s call for saving our soil from the excessive use of chemicals”, he said.
ICA AP President Dr Chandra Pal Singh said that it is a recent phenomenon when the subject cooperative is being referred to from all great platforms- be it Red Fort and Parliament. These three years had indeed been wonderful for the sector, added Chandra Pal.
Earlier, Jyotindra Mehta introduced the newly elected board members of NAFCUB to the gathering. Uday Joshi, the national General Secretary of Sahakar Bharati thanked the guests for gracing the occasion.
