Lauding the success of the cooperative movement in India’s dairy and agriculture sectors, senior BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha on Tuesday called for similar global initiatives to ensure food and energy security at the United Nations.
“India’s experience with the cooperatives has been singularly successful. This has been duly noted by the Secretary General of the United Nations,” Sinha said in the 66th UN General Assembly.
Sinha, a Lok Sabha member representing Patna Saheb in Bihar, delivered the statement on behalf of India at the UN General Assembly on the occasion of the launch of the
international Year of Cooperatives – 2012.
The actor-turned-politician, who served as a Union minister in the NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, said cooperative movements could address the burning issues of
global food and energy security.
“India calls upon member states, the UN system, civil society and the private sector to strongly advocate cooperative movements in this regard”, Sinha said.
The BJP leader cited the success story of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which sells its product under the brand name ‘Amul’, and a milk cooperative under the brand ‘Sudha’ in his home state of Bihar.
“A milk cooperative, Amul is a household name in India. Behind the brand stands a milk marketing federation, a union of 15,712 village milk cooperatives comprising three million milk producers with daily milk collection of 12 million litres and supported by one million retailers,” he told the gathering.
Similarly, a milk cooperative under the brand name ‘Sudha’ has contributed significantly to ensuring the availability of healthy, nutritive and affordable dairy products to people in Bihar, he added.
The Indian Farmers’s Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), the largest fertiliser producing cooperative in Asia, is another steller example of cooperative success in India,
Sinha said.
-PTI
