The Centre has been preparing a roadmap for development of national federations of cooperatives, while primary cooperatives (at village levels) have started offering railway ticket booking and soon will start flight ticket booking.
Chairing the first meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Cooperation on Tuesday, Cooperation Minister Amit Shah briefed the members about achievements of his Ministry as well as shared updates on some of the ongoing projects.
Rapid development
He informed the committee that a roadmap has been prepared for the rapid development of national federations associated with cooperation, in collaboration with fertilizer cooperatives KRIBHCO and IFFCO as well as with National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
Shah said the model bylaws, created to make Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) economically ‘viable’, have been adopted by all the States and many of these societies have started expanding their business to other activities.
PACS have been linked to more than 20 activities and have now started providing services such as Common Service Centres and Jan Aushadhi Kendras, the Cooperation Ministry said in a statement. The minister informed the committee members that those PACS, which are currently involved in booking railway tickets, would soon be able to sell airline tickets as well.
He further said that the National Cooperative Database is almost complete and information about cooperative societies is available at one click.
On the recently introduced bill to change the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) as Tribhuvan Sahkari University, he said it will be passed by Parliament soon. Highlighting the importance of trained manpower in the cooperation sector, he said the university will provide technical education, accounting, administrative knowledge, and training to professionals entering the cooperative sector.
Same opportunities
He said the government’s endeavour has been to ensure the cooperative sector gets the same opportunities as the corporate sector. The Cooperation Ministry, Reserve Bank of India and Income Tax Department have taken steps to make “one tax structure for the corporate and cooperative sectors,” he said.
He also said the government is taking special steps to bring uniform balanced development in all the States in view of regional disparity in the cooperative sector.