Uttarakhand Co-op Movement: Singh takes stock

“Women in the country can strengthen their economic status through cooperatives in forestry, vegetable and fruit farming and solar energy,” said Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh while opening a seven day inter-state cooperative investment summit and exhibition in Dehradun.

He said Indian cooperative movement is one of the biggest cooperative movements in the world with a network of about 8 lakh cooperative societies at the village and national levels. The membership of cooperative societies in the country is more than 274 million mostly catering to the needs of people at the grassroots level, Singh sounded optimistic.

Several VIPs including Cooperative Minister of Uttarakhand Dhan Singh Rawat, National Cooperative Union of India Governing Council member and Uttarakhand State Cooperative Federation Chairman Pramod Kumar Singh, Manvendra Singh, Dr K S Rana and Chairman and Directors of State Cooperative Banks attended the function.

Talking about the role of cooperatives in the development of Uttarakhand, Singh said “I am happy to learn that the State’s cooperative department has decided to boost entrepreneurship through cooperatives and organized the exhibition.

Cooperatives are not new to our country and that the cooperative movement had first started in a village in Gujarat and the movement led to the enactment of the Cooperative Credit Societies Act, 1904, he added.

Uttrakhand Cooperative Minister Dhan Singh Rawat said “We are trying to make the state’s cooperative movement free from politics and strengthen it. Prior to the function, he announced that as Patanjali products are popular, we have decided to run Patanjali stores and also use the same stores for selling local products.

Lauding the efforts of PACS societies, Radha Mohan Singh said there are 4,381 societies in the state active in various sectors. As many as 759 PACS are operational and their membership is 12 lakh. And it deserves appreciation that PACS cover nearly hundred percent villages in the state.

On the occasion Singh launched a website dedicated to the Uttarakhand Cooperative movement and released a phone number which anybody can dial to become a member by giving a missed call to it.

Several DCCBs of Uttarakhand including Dehradun State Cooperative Bank had set-up stalls for sharing information about the schemes of banks especially on how to become members, benefits of becoming members and many other facilities being offered by banks, said Chairman Dr K S Rana to this correspondent on the phone soon after the inauguration.