In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah said the Ministry of Cooperation has opened a new Object Head “Grants-in-Aid General” for the National Council for Cooperative Training (NCCT) to enable it to continue its crucial work in cooperative training and education.
He stated that earlier, most of the training expenses were met through the Training and Development Fund (TDF), which is primarily meant for repair and infrastructure development. Since this arrangement was not sustainable in the long run, the creation of the new budget head will ease the burden on the TDF and allow funds to be used for their intended purposes.
As part of educational reforms, the Minister informed that under the Ministry’s direction and NCCT’s persuasion, NCERT has included a chapter on cooperatives for Class 6 students in its school curriculum. This aims to introduce young students to the cooperative movement at an early age.
Further, under the Ministry’s guidance and in consultation with NCERT, the NCCT has designed a Special Module on Cooperation for secondary-stage students of NCERT schools. The module seeks to raise awareness about the role of cooperatives in nation-building and inspire students to consider careers in the cooperative sector.
To ensure infrastructure development at training institutions, a Building Sub-Committee has been constituted for each NCCT institute to ensure timely and structured development of training facilities.
Amit Shah also highlighted NCCT’s collaboration with CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd., under which 648 training programmes have been conducted for 30,210 participants across 564 districts in 25 states.
The objective is to train Secretaries and Computer Operators of 30,000 PACS onboarded on the CSC Portal, helping them diversify business activities through over 300 services.
In July 2025, the NCCT began conducting training programmes for newly established Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (MPCS). As per the National Cooperative Database (NCD), a total of 22,283 MPCS had been established in the country as of June 20, 2025, all of which are proposed to be covered under the training initiative.
Shah also informed the House that on January 20, 2025, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between NCCT and the Crop Insurance Division of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India.
The MoU aims to build a capacity-building and knowledge management framework under the PMFBY and RWBCIS schemes. A proposal to conduct 200 training programmes to train 10,000 PACS participants has been submitted and is currently under consideration.
Additionally, the Regional Institute of Cooperative Management (RICM), Chandigarh has launched a biannual peer-reviewed journal, “Sahkarita Anusandhan, A Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Science,” to promote research and knowledge dissemination in the cooperative sector.
RICM has also taken the initiative to revive its Post Graduate Diploma in Management, Agri-Business Management (PGDM-ABM), which has been duly approved by AICTE.