Union Cooperation and Home Minister Amit Shah will inaugurate the mega cooperative event tomorrow on 1st April 2022 at Palace Grounds, Bangalore. During the conclave, he will launch the Logo of Nandini Ksheera Abhivrudhi Bank.
A novel concept to boost the income of dairy farmers, Ksheera Abhivrudhi Bank has an allocation of Rs 100 crore made in the budget. The order in this regard would be issued soon, said the Chief Minister interacting with the media.
It will be Shah’s first co-op event in Karnataka after becoming the Union Cooperation Minister. The program is being organized by the Cooperative Department in collaboration with many apex co-op bodies of the state.
Over 9,000 co-operative leaders are likely to participate in the event. The short documentary on the growth of the cooperative movement in India and Karnataka will be shown on the occasion.
Besides Shah, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, MoS Shobha Karandlaje, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, Cooperation Minister S T Somashekar, Agriculture Minister B. C. Patil, Minister for Parliament Affairs Pralhad Joshi, Ex-CM Siddaramaiah and other cabinet rank ministers will grace the occasion. Many local cooperators representing different apex cooperative bodies of the State will attend the event.
Besides the Ksheer Abhivridhi Bank scheme, Shah would relaunch Yashaswini, the health insurance scheme for members of cooperative societies.
Karnataka Chief Minister Bommai said, “Shah is working for reforms in the cooperative sector, will be visiting the state to attend a large meeting related to ‘Ksheerabhivruddi bank’ that we are planning to launch, aimed at giving a financial boost to the dairy sector that will increase farmers income and provide them financial support.
“Milk Cooperative Societies in the State have annual revenue of Rs 36,000 crores. The State government has decided to establish a Milk Producers Bank with an intention to ensure that the profit goes to milk producers”, The CM was speaking at the ‘Sahakara Ratna’ award ceremony organized by Karnataka State Cooperative Federation Limited recently.
Meanwhile, opposition leaders have charged that it is less of a co-op event and more of a political one. “This is a bid to reach out to the voters through cooperatives for the upcoming elections of Karnataka”, they felt. It bears recall that cooperatives have a strong presence at the village level in Karnataka.
Readers would recall that a few days back, Shah participated in the mega co-operative event in the Surat district of Gujarat, which drew a huge crowd of co-operators.
There are 42,551 Co-operatives under the control of the Registrar of Co-operative Societies in the state, of which 37,532 are functional.