Promoting Co-op identity among students: NCUI ties up with UBA

Furthering its agenda of cross-sectoral collaboration for empowering the cooperatives and realising the vision of ‘Sahkaar Se Samriddhi’, NCUI signed an MoU with Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) in the presence of Shri Dileep Sanghani, President, NCUI, Dr. Chandrapal Singh Yadav, President, ICA-AP and Dr. Bijendra Singh, Chairman, NAFED and ViceChairman, NCUI.

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) is a flagship program launched by the Ministry of Education, Government of India in 2014 with a mission to enable higher educational institutions to work with the people of rural India in identifying development challenges and evolving appropriate solutions for accelerating sustainable growth.

Through the collaboration, NCUI in association with UBA will conduct research and development work to identify the key challenges and corresponding solutions of farmers and cooperatives and utilise the power of technology and innovative processes for entrepreneurship development among the needy sections of society in general and the villages adopted under UBA in particular.

Both organisations will devise strategies and processes for promoting natural farming, including millet production among the farmers and promote sustainable lifestyle and nature-friendly measures for conservation of ecology and identify, groom and promote suitable indigenous products, processes and traditional skills of artisans for income enhancement and potential replication.

NCUI and UBA will also work together to form new cooperatives in emerging areas of economy by engaging youth and women in their network. UBA will promote cooperative identity among the students for the formation of campus and other types of cooperatives. NCUI will benefit from the technical resource of UBA to identify and promote low-cost and efficient production and processing technologies in the interest of the artisans and cooperatives.

It also aims to create a virtuous cycle between society and an inclusive academic system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors in responding to the development needs of rural India. Currently, UBA has a network of over 3600 colleges and 18000 villages across India.

Efforts will be made to establish centres of excellence for research and demonstration of successful technological innovations in areas of rural development and organise national and regional-level workshops too.

Post signing of MoU, Prof. V K Vijay, National Coordinator, UBA explained the recent initiatives and achievements of UBA to President, NCUI and also discussed some of the key interventions being planned to be executed in collaboration with Centre for Entrepreneurship Development and Cooperation of NCUI  in the near future