Led by former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu, some of the Convenors of the subcommittees formed within the National Cooperative Policy Panel tasked with working on different themes, met the Union Minister Amit Shah Thursday evening at Atal Urja Bhawan in Delhi. They briefed the Minister on the progress of the report.
In the hour-long meeting, each of the leaders put forth the findings of the subcommittee report, which was heard by others including the Minister. Shah also made some pointed suggestions to clarify the subject, said one of the participants of the meeting.
Suresh Prabhu, the Chairman of the Panel and a part of the team meeting the Minister on Thursday, stressed majorly two themes–Prosperity through co-ops and Ease of doing business in the cooperative mode of economy, sources revealed.
Dileep Sanghani discussed the role of Cooperatives in Future Growth, its Roadmap and achieving the target of Sahakar Se Samriddhi. He argued that cooperatives are truly the people-based movement in economic and social development and could be a partner in achieving a goal of a $5 trillion economy.
Talking to Indian Cooperative soon after the meeting, Sanghani said that the Minister was actively participating in the discussion and at one point during the discussion, he (Amit Shah) assured that the co-op sector will have a share in the Union Budget. “You (co-ops) do whatever you are doing but the govt through its budget will also pitch in on its part” Sanghani said quoting the minister.
Satish Marathe, another Convenor of the Panel argued that there is no dearth of money in tehsils and villages but depositors need to have trust on the co-op network. Marathe argued for provision of insurance on deposits in PACS and smaller co-op entities.
Besides Suresh Prabhu, Sanghani and Marathe, those present in the meeting included Prakash Naiknavare, MD of NFCSF, Dr C Pichai, Professor from Tamil Nadu, Maninder Singh from Assam, Dr Umakant Das from IRMA and Dr Hema Yadav, Director Vamnicom.
It bears recalling that the cooperative policy is divided into eight themes including Introduction, Current States and Strategies for growth and development, Structural reforms and governance framework, cooperatives as vibrant entities, training, continuing education, research, knowledge dissemination, accelerating the cooperative movement, infrastructure, technology and innovations and Networks, convergence & collaborations.
NCUI President Sanghani informed that besides briefing Amit Shah about the NCP Panel progress, the minister was also informed that the next meeting of the Panel is slated at the NCUI headquarters on 24th January. “We hope to finalise the draft on this date”, said Sanghani who had come to Delhi just to attend the meeting and was on way back to the airport.
