In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah said that the newly established Tribhuvan Sahkari University (TSU) has officially commenced operations following its creation through an Act of Parliament passed during the Budget Session of 2025. The university is a pioneering initiative in the field of cooperative education, aimed at developing skilled professionals for India’s growing cooperative ecosystem.
At present, TSU offers four academic programmes, one ongoing course from the erstwhile Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) and three newly introduced courses. The current approved intake includes 25 seats for diploma programmes, 30 for undergraduate, 583 for postgraduate, and 10 for doctoral programmes.
From the fourth year of its operation, TSU along with its affiliated institutions is expected to significantly scale up capacity. The projected annual intake will be around 9,600 for UG and PG programmes, 16,000 for diploma courses, about 60 for Ph.D. programmes, and nearly 8 lakh for certificate courses.
Importantly, the government has clarified that TSU will not be limited to Gujarat. The university will expand across the country by establishing its own schools and affiliating other institutions, ensuring nationwide access to quality cooperative education. To support this vision, the Government of India has provided a one-time capital grant of Rs 500 crore as a corpus fund for infrastructure development. The financing model of TSU will include a combination of government funding, self-financing, and other sources.
The Act establishing TSU declared it an institution of national importance, and IRMA, a premier rural management institute with decades of legacy, has now been subsumed into TSU as one of its schools.
However, IRMA’s academic autonomy will be preserved under the new framework, ensuring continuity in quality and structure. The move has been widely seen as a way to integrate excellence in cooperative education with broader institutional outreach.
The government envisions TSU as a central pillar in strengthening India’s cooperative movement by offering structured, modern, and scalable training for all levels of cooperative functioning, from grassroots workers to senior management. During the bhoomi pujan ceremony held in Anand on July 5, 2025, Amit Shah highlighted that the 125-acre campus of TSU will include multiple schools and centres focused on various dimensions of cooperative development, innovation, and policy.
The university’s academic roadmap aligns with the National Education Policy 2020 and seeks to bridge existing gaps in training and capacity-building within the cooperative sector. Through TSU, the Ministry of Cooperation aims to train up to 2 million individuals associated with cooperatives in the next five years.
This will include leadership development, operational skill-building, digital training, and research-led policy insights. A dedicated Research and Development Council is also being created to drive applied research and innovation in the cooperative space.
The first affiliation under TSU has already been completed with Pune’s Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM), which will now offer degree and certificate programmes in collaboration with the university.
More than 200 cooperative institutions are expected to be affiliated over the coming years, with curriculum modernization and governance reform at the core of the transformation.
With this national-level framework now in place, Tribhuvan Sahkari University is poised to become the academic and administrative backbone of India’s cooperative resurgence, promoting equity, professionalism, and sustainable development across the sector.