What the new Ministry of Cooperation needs to achieve
The Ministry of Cooperation has been created by the Modi government to strengthen the cooperative movement in India by providing a separate administrative, legal, and policy framework. India is, perhaps, the first country to have such a ministry. It will work efficient processes for ease of doing business for cooperatives and further authorize the setting up of multi-state cooperatives. It will help intensify Co-operative as a true people-based movement reaching up to the grassroots. In our country, a Co-operative based economic development model is very pertinent where each member works with a spirit of responsibility. However, India’s agreement with the cooperative movement has brought out mixed results – few successes and many failures.
The perspective of the Ministry is ‘Sahkar see Samriddhi’ meaning prosperity from cooperatives. The Finance Minister, in her budget speech, had proposed a separate administrative structure for cooperatives. Minister of home affairs, Amit shah has been assigned the portfolio as an additional charge, thus making him the inaugural Minister for the new Ministry.
Manmohan Singh’s trade policy changes and did a lot for others as well as improved the terms of trade for agriculture and benefitted thousands of farmers. Agriculture exports get the lead out, but this led to higher domestic prices. Before anyone could respond from the supply side, congress lost power, and export controls came back to depress domestic agriculture prices.
In 1991, Manmohan Singh desire to grant the dairy sector as well, but there was strong competition from Verghese Kurien, the champion of cooperatives and the “Milkman of India”. As a compromise, Narasimha Rao de-licensed the sector through the Milk and Milk products Orders of 1992 to a limited extent. Then after 10 years in 2002 diary sector was completely de-licensed. Development in dairy products is the authentication that competition between cooperatives and corporate dairy players has benefitted thousands of farmers in India.
