One of the largest virtual conferences in the world is set to begin at 11am on Saturday: The first-ever National Cooperative Conference, chaired by the newly-appointed Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah, who is expected to outline the government's vision and roadmap for the development of the sector.
The conference—to be held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium—is being organised by cooperative bodies IFFCO, National Cooperative Federation of India, Amul, Sahakar Bharti, NAFED, KRIBHCO, among others. The event will see 2,000 members attending in person, while eight crore people will join virtually.
Around 3 million cooperatives from 110 countries associated with the International Cooperative Alliance (Global) are also expected to join virtually, an IFFCO official said.
This is the first Sehkarita Sammelan, or National Cooperative Conference, that Shah is scheduled to address as minister in charge of the new Ministry of Cooperation, which was created in July this year with an aim to strengthen the cooperative movement in the country.
"This is the first big event (where) the minister will address the cooperatives and will share the government's vision and outline the roadmap for the development of this sector in the country," the ministry's spokesperson told reporters.
This will be the first opportunity where the members of cooperatives will hear from the minister directly about the government's plan for the sector, the official said.
The Ministry’s core mantra is to strengthen the cooperative movement in the country, provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework and streamline the processes to enable the development of Multi-State Cooperative Societies (MSCS), it said.
Background
Shah is no stranger to cooperatives: He was appointed president of the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank at the age of 36, a time when the bank was facing severe financial troubles. Shah, tasked with shoring up its capital reserves, helped it turn a profit through securities trading.
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Besides Shah, B.L. Verma—MoS for Cooperation and Ariel Guarco, President of the International Cooperative Alliance, will also be attending.
Village Level Entrepreneurs have been tasked with organizing farmers’ meetings with at least 100 participants in each location. There are about 1.2 lakh village-level entrepreneurs enrolled with the government’s Common Service Centres.
The NDA government’s interest in cooperatives follows over a year of protests from farmers in Punjab and Haryana, who allege that farm reforms have weakened the role of state-run Agricultural Produce & Livestock Market Committee (APMCs). The farm bills passed in 2020 allow farmers to sell their produce outside of the APMCs—a move which protesters fear will weaken APMCs and in turn the ability of farmers to access Minimum Support Price rates for their produce.
In 2020, the Centre okayed an ordinance that put cooperative banks under the RBI.
“The urban co-operative and multi-state co-operative banks will come under the supervisory control of the RBI. The supervisory norms which apply to commercial banks will also be applicable to them. The move will help keep the depositors’ money safe,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar had said in a press briefing.
The move was criticised by some for potentially increasing the Centre’s control of the cooperatives—cooperatives are a state subject. In many states, politicians have risen through the leadership of cooperatives. However, the RBI’s move came after two cooperative banks, Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank, collapsed—which led to calls for greater regulation of the same
The NDA government has signalled its intent to boost the cooperative movement. The Agricultural Infrastructure Fund sanctioned 76 per cent of projects worth about Rs 3,000 crore to PACS Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), since its inception in 2020, according to a reply by the Ministry of Agriculture in the Rajya Sabha. The scheme envisions Rs one lakh crore being sanctioned for PACS over ten years.
The international participation in the summit is also of note. The International Cooperation Alliance had recently released a research publication on the role of cooperatives in environmental protection and adapting to climate change. The cooperative movement is often touted as a model for sustainable growth as it allows community-led participation, letting locals become economic actors in climate change adaptation.
Saturday’s conference will be keenly watched by those who track this sector, as well as its millions of members. If India is ready to be bullish on cooperatives, the implications could be massive for the crores of people who participate in the cooperative movement.
With inputs from PTI
