During its recent visit to Maharashtra to know a state which has the pride of representing the strongest cooperative movement in the country, Indian Cooperative team led by Rohit Gupta was felicitated by Vidyadhar V. Anaskar, Chairman of Maharashtra Urban Cooperative Bank Federation. Besides others, the Indian Cooperative team consisted of Rohit Gupta and Amit Awana.
Anaskar applauded Indian Cooperative for producing reliable reports and disseminating knowledge about the cooperative sector across the country. “The first thing a cooperator from Kashmir to Kanyakumari does in the morning is to see what is happening in his sector and there cannot be a better place to do that than the pages of Indian Cooperative. After a long hunt, the country’s cooperators have finally found a platform they needed to express themselves”, said Anaskar.
Anaskar is a name to conjure with in the cooperative sector whose contributions spanning three decades are widely recognized.
Camping short term in Pune, Indian Cooperative correspondents tried to gauge the extent to which the co-operative movement is entrenched in Maharashtra. It bears recall that in the profiling of cooperatives done by the apex co-op body NCUI in the country, the highest number of co-operatives were found to exist here.
The profiling results showed Maharashtra piping every other state at the post when it came to the number of viable co-operatives. It has 2.46 lakh cooperatives in all. Gujarat which is often held as a state studded with coops has a mere 62 thousand; it is behind Telangana which has 65 thousand viable cooperatives.
Coming to IC team’s Maharashtra visit, they met officials and elected heads of several co-operative institutions including Chairmen and CEOs of Urban Cooperative Banks. They realized in no time why Maharashtra is ahead of all other states.
During their trip, they collected success stories of many of these banks which Indian Cooperative would publish for
Anaskar who is held as a formidable cooperator from Pune and who had been on the board of NAFCUB, felicitated the Indian Cooperative team with a shawl and with a book written by former governor of Reserve Bank of India Raghuram G. Rajan with the title “I do what I do”.
In the meeting Anaskar also discussed his plans to give a boost to the cooperative movement through Urban Cooperative Banking sector. He shared highlights of his plans which call for a separate story.
Indian Cooperative felt extremely humble at the words of Maharashtra Urban Cooperative Bank Federation Chairman Ansakar who was all praise for it and complemented the team for its service to the cooperative sector. “We also need encouragement”, said an emotional correspondent Rohit Gupta who was touched by Anaskar’s gesture.