National Conference on Cooperation Policy

• 14 Apr 2022

For Prelims: National Conference on Cooperation Policy, Cooperatives, Ministry of Cooperation, 97^th Amendment, Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles of State Policy.

For Mains: Government Policies & Interventions, Ministry of Cooperation and Its Significance, Cooperatives in India.

Why in News?

Recently the National Conference on Cooperation Policy concluded in New Delhi.

What are the Highlights of the Conference?

• The conference was structured into six important themes covering not only the whole life cycle of cooperatives but also touching upon all the facets of their business and governance.
• The panel discussions have been held on following themes:
  • Present legal framework, identification of Regulatory policy, Operational barriers and measures required for their removal leading to Ease of Doing Business and providing a level playing field to cooperatives and other economic entities.
  • Reforms for strengthening governance including cooperative principles, democratic member control, increasing member participation, transparency, regular elections, Human Resource Policy, leveraging International & National best practices, account keeping & auditing.
  • Multi Cooperative Vibrant economic entities by strengthening infrastructure, strengthening equity base, access to capital, diversification of activities, promoting entrepreneurship, promoting branding, marketing, business plan development, innovation, technology adoption and exports
  • Training, Education, knowledge sharing and Awareness Building including mainstreaming cooperatives, linking training with entrepreneurship, inclusion of Women, Youth & Weaker Sections.
  • Promoting new cooperatives, revitalising defunct ones, promoting cooperation among cooperatives, increasing membership, formalising collectives, developing cooperatives for sustainable growth, mitigating regional imbalances & exploring new sectors.
  • Promoting social cooperative and role of cooperatives in social security.
• The ministry is planning a series of such conferences with different stakeholders, besides, shortly, another workshop with all cooperative federations to invite their views.
• These efforts will culminate in the formulation of a new robust National Cooperation Policy, giving impetus to strengthen the cooperative based economic model in the country to realise the vision and mantra of Sahkar Se Samaridhi.

What is the Ministry of Cooperation?

• About:
  • The Government of India, under the guidance of the Prime Minister had carved out a new Ministry of Cooperation on 06^th July 2021 with the objective to provide renewed impetus to the growth of the Cooperative Sector and realisation of vision from Cooperation to Prosperity.
  • The ministry is working incessantly for development of the cooperative sector for formulation of new Schemes and the new Cooperation Policy.
• Significance:
  • It will provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country.
  • It will help deepen Co-operatives as a true people based movement reaching upto the grassroots.
  • It will work to streamline processes for ‘Ease of doing business’ for co-operatives and enable development of Multi-State Co-operatives (MSCS).

What are Cooperatives in India?

• Definition:
  • The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) defines a Cooperative as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. 
  • Examples of Successful Cooperatives in India:
    • National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED),
    • Indian Farmers Fertilisers Cooperative Limited (IFFCO),
    • AMUL
• Constitutional Provisions:
  • The Constitution (97^th Amendment) Act, 2011 added a new Part IXB regarding the cooperatives working in India.
    • The word “cooperatives” was added after “unions and associations” in Article 19(1)(c) under Part III of the Constitution.
      • This enables all the citizens to form cooperatives by giving it the status of fundamental right of citizens.
    • A new Article 43B was added in the Directive Principles of State Policy (Part IV) regarding the “promotion of cooperative societies”.
  • The subject ‘Cooperative Societies’ is a State subject included in Item 32 of List-II (State List) in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

Way Forward

• New areas are emerging with the advancement of technology and cooperative societies can play a huge role in making people familiar with those areas and technologies.
• Principle of the cooperative movement is to unite everyone, even while remaining anonymous. The cooperative movement has the capacity to solve people’s problems.
• However, there are irregularities in cooperatives and to check them there have to be rules and stricter implementation.
• To strengthen the cooperatives there should be market linkages for agricultural farmers as well as cooperative societies.

Source: PIB