The Centre is putting in place provisions and other guidelines for including cooperatives as beneficiaries as well as participants in all its major schemes and programmes, government officials familiar with the matter told News18.
Towards this, all ministries and departments are currently in the process of undertaking a relook at its schemes and programmes, the officials said.
This was decided in a meeting held last month by ministry of cooperation secretary Gyanesh Kumar with representatives from other central ministries.
An official privy to the discussions told News18 that it was deliberated that cooperatives should be treated at par with other economic entities.
“Other issues that came up for discussions were those related to providing parity to cooperative banks with others, giving a priority sector lending status to the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), and issues being faced by cooperative sugar mills,” the official said.
It was decided, the official added, that detailed discussions would be held regarding this by the ministry of cooperation with the department of financial services, and the department of food and public distribution.
A second official said that other issues in the pipeline are efforts to strengthen the fisheries cooperative sector, in association with the department of fisheries.
The newest addition to the central government, the ministry of cooperation, headed by Amit Shah, was formed in July last year to focus on the development of India’s cooperative sector.
The meeting last month also took stock of the progress achieved on a set of directives issued by cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba in March this year.
Gauba, in a communication in March to all secretaries in the central government, said that the ministry of cooperation should be given due representation in various implementation committees of ministries and issues of the cooperative sector should be adequately addressed in such meetings.
He also said that any requirement for training in this sector can be met through different institutes of cooperative management and training in consultation with the ministry of cooperation.
According to government statistics, India has over 8.5 lakh cooperatives that are found in the housing, fishing, dairy, livestock, poultry, handloom, as well as women’s and service cooperatives.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a budget webinar said that efforts should be made to leverage the strength of cooperatives and they should be transformed into successful business enterprises, for which they should be integrated into other government schemes and programmes, and should have parity with other economic entities.
It was also decided in the latest meeting that the department of economic affairs will invite the chairpersons of various national cooperative federations in pre-budget sectoral meetings, the second official quoted above said.
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