Five top Sahakar Bharati leaders landed in Delhi on short notice on Thursday to meet the newly appointed Union Cooperative Minister and Home Minister Amit Shah at his residence. Among other things, Sah Bharati leaders stressed on the need to have a National Co-operative Development Policy for the country and the need to develop the NCCT as a Centre of Excellence, free from NCUI.
The longish meeting which lasted one and a half hours and took up fourteen key points related to co-operatives, was led by Sahakar Bharti President Ramesh Vaidya. Others in the team included Uday Joshi, Sanjay Pachpor, Jyotindra Mehta and Satish Marathe. Mehta is said to be close to Shah having worked together for the betterment of co-ops in Gujarat in the past.
After the meeting Marathe shared the details through WhatsApp, “SB Team had a fruitful Mtg with Hon Amitbhai Shah, Union CoOp Minister, GOI today morning at his Residence in Delhi”.
The Minister also shared the details of the meeting “Met the delegation of Sahakar Bharati led by Shri Ramesh Vaidya, National President of Sahakar Bharati. Under the guidance of Shri Narendra Modi ji, by empowering the cooperative sector, we have to work with a determined spirit to bring about a positive change in the lives of crores of people associated with it”, he wrote in Hindi.
Talking to Indian Cooperative Uday Joshi said, “It was a fruitful meeting in which we raised several issues before the Minister, which he listened very patiently and we found him eager to resolve them sooner than later. Shah was very positive towards our demands”, he said with a sense of satisfaction.
The issues discussed during the meeting include, “Review and Update National Co-operative Development Policy to expand and deepen the Co-operative Network in the Country and Formulating National Co-operative Training and Capacity Building Policy to meet the HR NEEDS of 8.50 Lakhs Co-operatives in the Country.
Sahakar Bharati also felt that a case pertaining to the 97th Constitution Amendment has been pending in the Supreme Court for more than a decade and decisive steps need to be taken to settle the matter. Favorable decisions of the SC will result in liberating Co-op from political and bureaucratic intervention”, they argued.
Co-operatives are Economic Enterprises and hence Ease of Doing Business Norms be extended to all Co-operatives, demanded the leaders. In many States, Social Activists and Co-operators are unable to register new Co-operatives. Hence, to overcome this issue, registration of Co-operatives under Multi State Co-operative Societies Act be encouraged, felt the leaders.
In the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance there is not even a single Officer/Unit to deal with issues relating to Financial Co-operatives. As a consequence, Co-operatives Financial Institutions do not get included in GOI Schemes eg. Interest Subvention, CGTMSE, MLI for Ntl Housing Bank, SIDBI, Mudra, etc”, it adds.
Interestingly, NCUI leadership is making efforts to amalgamate NCCT with NCUI and the former co-op ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Parshottam Rupala had also given their assent to the idea. But now with Shah in office and a resurgent Sahakar Bharati in mission mode, things may go the other way. One cannot overlook the fact that both Shah and Sahakar Bharati owe their primary allegiance to RSS.
The list of issues discussed during the meeting can be accessed by clicking the link below
Meeting with Hon. CoOp Minister
