Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah delivered an address at the prestigious Laxmanrao Inamdar Memorial lecture, organized by Mumbai University and Sahakar Bharati in Maharashtra on Saturday wherein he postulated a convincing theory as to how the Co-op model is better placed than other models for the growth of nation and its economy.
Shah said everyone remembers Shri Laxmanrao with utmost respect among the prominent national leaders of the cooperative sector. He said that among all these leaders, Shri Inamdar was the only one, who was neither a member nor an office bearer of any cooperative society, yet he contributed significantly to the cooperative sector.
“Shri Laxmanrao Inamdar possessed intellectual rigour when it came to the principles and essence of cooperation, and he used this to address and eradicate prevailing shortcomings within the cooperatives”, said Shah underlining how Inamdar guided Sahakar Bharati for so many years. He added that it is a result of Laxmanrao Ji’s efforts that Sahakar Bharati has been able to carve a distinct position for itself.
He said that after independence, cooperation made a commendable effort to provide a model that bridged the gap between socialist and capitalist models. He added that the other two models envisioned the state and the market; the cooperative model was based on the idea of cooperation and the welfare of all.
Shah lamented that after 1960, and particularly after 1967, politics started interfering with the cooperative sector, and gradually, there was a decline in the country’s economy, which had a detrimental impact on the cooperative movement. He said that for the first time after independence, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has brought both cooperative and corporate at the same level in terms of income tax.
He said that if we take forward the activities of cooperatives by combining them with modern technology in tune with the changing times, then there is no better way to develop the economy along with employment generation in a country like India. He said that do not assume that the cooperative has become irrelevant, rather the future of the cooperative is going to be brighter.
Through the excellent model of cooperation, 36 lakh women in the country conduct a milk business worth 60,000 crore rupees through Amul, and not a single woman has invested more than Rs. 100 as capital. He said that cooperatives have contributed significantly towards prosperity of Gujarat, especially in rural areas.
He added that the cooperative model is very suitable for our country because we need employment along with economic development, mass production, and production by masses. Shri Shah said that mass production will accelerate the country’s economy, and production by masses will provide employment to every individual in the country.
He said that the model of cooperation is a humanity-centric model. Today, there are 8.5 lakh cooperative societies in the country with 30 crore members, 93,000 PACS, 2 lakh milk societies and many world-renowned cooperative societies like IFFCO, KRIBHCO, and Amul. He said that 12 cooperative banks of India are among the top 300 top ranked cooperative societies in the world.
Shah dwelt on the issues of channelizing the energies of those 60 crores of people whom the Modi govt has wedded to the country’s economy. They want to contribute to the country’s development, but they do not have their own capital. He said that only through cooperation they can be linked with the development of the country.
He said that cooperation is an area in which thousands of people with small capital can come together and compete with industries having huge capital. Shah also recounted Modi govt initiatives in the field of co-operatives including that for the UCB sector such as rresolving their issues one by one by sitting with the RBI.
In the next 5 years, 3 lakh new PACS will be created and there will be one PACS in every panchayat and these PACS will be multidimensional. These PACS will be made viable by adding 20 types of new activities to them. Shah said that the Central Government has prepared model bye-laws and sent them to all the states and 23 states of the country have accepted these model bye-laws.
On the occasion Shah also referred to three national level Multistate Co-ops in the field of Seed, Organic and Export. He said that the world’s largest food grain storage scheme will also be implemented through PACS. Along with this, a cooperative university is also going to come up soon, arrangements have also been made to sell the products of all cooperatives through GEM and 1100 new FPOs will also be formed through PACS. He said that PACS will now be able to work as CSC also.
Several dignitaries, including Governor of Maharashtra, Shri Ramesh Bais and Chief Minister, Shri Eknath Shinde, were present on the occasion.
