According to the panel’s head and former Union minister Suresh Prabhu, the new National Cooperative Policy is virtually complete, and a 47-member committee is in the process of presenting the draught to the federal government.
Amit Shah, the Union Home and Cooperation Minister, had previously stated that Prabhu would serve as the chairman of the national-level committee and that a specific policy to support the cooperative movement in the nation is now being developed.
According to the former commerce and industry minister, the programme has the potential to alter India’s socioeconomic landscape by significantly raising the proportion of cooperatives in the nation’s overall GDP.
According to Prabhu, the goal of the strategy is to advance an economic development model based on cooperatives and supported by a legal and institutional framework.
“I have a lengthy history of working with many national and international cooperatives, and I am aware of their potential. Any economic activity will improve the quality of people’s lives, but cooperatives assist in distributing money and building wealth while spreading it around.
And for that reason, he continued, “the government is considering raising the proportion of cooperatives in nearly all economic sectors.”
In 2002, the current National Policy on Cooperatives was created.
According to government statistics, India has about 8.5 lakh cooperative societies with a membership of close to 29 crore. These cooperatives engage in a variety of industries, including weaving, housing, dairying, fishing, and marketing, in addition to agriculture.
The cooperation ministry has also agreed to establish cooperative warehousing, according to Prabhu, a former railway minister.
“I believe that this is a fantastic concept to help cooperatives grow. The country is developing millions of square metres of warehouse space, he continued.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated in his Independence Day speech that cooperatives play a key role in India’s social economy and that a special ministry was established to strengthen cooperatives and expand their network.
