Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday announced that a comprehensive cooperative policy will be presented before the country within seven to eight months.
"Suggestions for the new cooperative policy are appreciated. Some important points have to be addressed in the new policy like the free registration of cooperatives. Free registration of agriculture cooperative society has been closed, you can make your suggestions around it. The comprehensive cooperative policy will be released in seven-eight months," Amit Shah said.
Stressing the need for transparency, Home Minister said transparency is needed in the recruitment and training of employees.
"Computerisation is essential to ensure transparency in Cooperatives. Democratic principles are also needed to be established. An organization like the Election Commission of India should have to be formed to ensure transparency in the elections of cooperatives," he said.
He also stressed the need for better cooperation among the cooperative societies working in the region.
"Coordination among Cooperative societies is also needed. I suppose if there are five cooperative institutions in a village, there should be a system for coordination among them. A novel cooperative institution should be declared in every village to ensure cooperation among the cooperatives in the area," he said.
Shah said that if things like these would have been addressed 50 years back, many cooperatives would not have been closed.
The Cooperation Minister also advocated uniformity in the laws of every state with regard to a cooperative society.
"It is the right of every state to frame Cooperative rules on their own and we are not going to interfere in that. But it is necessary for creating uniform laws among states otherwise cooperatives will fail. Laws made in 1950 cannot continue in 2022. There is a need to amend them," he said.
Praising the Cooperative system, Minister said only models like this can uplift 80 crore people from economic distress.
"Industries lead to the development of the country but cooperatives lead to equal distribution of wealth. People who are economically backward can come out of their hardships thanks to models like these," Shah said.
He also credited the cooperative societies for leading the cause of women's empowerment.
"A cooperative (Amul) started by freedom fighters Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel has led to women empowerment in Gujarat. Rs 60,000 crores are directly going to their bank accounts today," he said.
Slamming previous governments for not creating a coordination system among cooperative societies, Cooperation Minister said that suggestions to establish coordination among various sectors were lying on shelves over the years and no one government took any action. 'There are suggestions to also establish coordination among Public and Private sectors but the files kept lying on the shelves and no one did anything. PM Modi created a ministry to ensure it," he said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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