Heralding a new era in co-operative governance, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah inaugurated the new building of the Office of the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS) in New Delhi on Wednesday.
“A comfortable office leads to a good work culture” said Shah remembering the days when the CRCS office operated from a small space. “New rule & Act, new office and new work culture”, said Shah assuring the representatives of multi state co-ops that the new office will offer better services to them.
On this occasion, MoS B.L. Verma, Secretary Gyanesh Kumar, MD of the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) and representatives of Multi-State Cooperative Federation, Multi-State Cooperative Societies and Banks from across the country were also present. Notable co-operators present on the occasion included NCUI Chairman Dileep Sanghani, IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi, Kribhco MD Rajen Chawdhary, Nafcub’s D Krishna, Vamnicom Director Hema Yadav, several Directors of IFFCO and Kribhco, MD and CGM of Saraswat Bank and others.
In his address, Shah said that the office of the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies will strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resolve of ‘Sahakar Se Samriddhi’. A strong blueprint for transparent cooperation was created by enacting a law in 2023 to remove various types of anomalies in the operation of cooperative societies.
Shah said the computerization of the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies office is already done and CRCS is also getting a new office today which has been built on an area of approximately 1550 square meters at a cost of around Rs. 175 crore. He also thanked Ministry officials and staff- members for several steps taken in the last two years regarding the governance of Multi State Cooperative Societies.
There were examples of successful cooperatives but the co-op sector has no noticeable impact on the rural economy, the Minister said, underlining the objective behind the formation of the Ministry of Cooperation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that by ensuring a major contribution of cooperatives in the 5 trillion US dollar economy envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we will take it into the 21st century. He said that the Ministry of Cooperation will fulfil the PM’s vision of a developed India.
Shah also released a book named ‘Collective Prosperity: The Legacy of Indian Cooperatives’ and asked the captains of co-operatives to spread its spirit to Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and all the smallest units. Shah said that this book will prove to be very useful in instilling confidence in the entire cooperative sector.
He said the Ministry of Cooperation has taken 60 initiatives in the last 30 months. He also said the PM has made the lives of crores of poor people of the country very simple by providing all the necessary amenities in the last 9 years. Shah said that only cooperation has the potential to enable these crores of poor people to contribute to the development of the country without any capital. He gave an example of Amul in this context.
Shah said that many unprecedented works have been done in the cooperative sector in the last 2 years. He said that people used to say that people’s money stuck in the Sahara Group will not be returned, but till now about 1.5 crore investors of cooperative societies of the Sahara Group have been registered and 2.5 lakh people have already got Rs 241 crore back.
Shah said that the new laws made for Multi State Cooperative Societies have been implemented by all
in letter and spirit. He said that this is the biggest example of the fact that the cooperative sector itself wants to revive and welcomes reforms. He said that if the cooperative sector loses its credibility, then there will be no expansion and there will be a crisis of existence.
The Union Minister of Cooperation also lauded IFFCO for its innovations of Nano DAP and Nano Urea Liquid. He said that in many villages, a huge attraction is being seen towards the spraying of IFFCO’s liquid urea by the drones.
The Minister said that the Modi government has fixed the target of registering 2 lakh new PACSs in the country, out of which more than 12000 have been registered and we will register 2 lakh multidisciplinary PACS before time.
Shah added that the Multi State Cooperative Credit Societies should prepare themselves to convert into banks. He said that 10 Multi State Cooperative Societies were registered in 2020 and 102 new Multi State Cooperative Societies have been registered in 2023, there is a 10-fold increase in registration. He said that we have to speed up this transformation and should move in a direction that more and more banks become multistate and more and more multistate cooperative societies and credit societies get converted into banks.
