Pushing to widen the reach of India's cooperative movement, Union Minister Amit Shah made two big announcements on Monday. He said a life insurance company would now be set up in the cooperative sector, and that the cooperatively run cab service Bharat Taxi would spread to 500 cities across the country within the next two years. Shah was speaking at an event in the national capital that marked the fifth Foundation Day of the Ministry of Cooperation. He tied both moves to the effort to broaden the range of cooperative business.
Shah said India currently has around 8.5 lakh cooperatives, with more than 30 crore members linked to them. He said the ministry has driven a series of reforms to modernise the entire sector. The goal, he explained, is to build a system that is transparent and powered by technology. Shah also charged that the cooperative movement had been neglected during the Congress regime, and said the ministry had given the movement a fresh lifeline.
Bharat Taxi's growing footprint
According to Shah, the cooperative ride-hailing platform Bharat Taxi is performing well. He said its footprint would expand into 500 cities in two years. On the same note, he said, "We will be setting up a life insurance company in the cooperative sector. This will help in the growth of cooperatives in the insurance sector." He pointed out that IFFCO-TOKIO already operates in the insurance space.
Shah said India has 26 life insurance companies at present. Bharat Taxi runs under Sahakar Taxi Cooperative Ltd. It is a driver-centric mobility platform built on a cooperative model. The service has 6.37 lakh registered drivers and 35.77 lakh registered customers. Shah connected it to the new cooperative business areas that reach beyond the older, established sectors.
According to an official statement, Bharat Taxi currently operates in Delhi-NCR, Gujarat, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Jaipur and Kanpur. The statement said the service will soon launch in Ranchi, Patna, Guwahati, Bhopal, Kolkata, Indore and Nagpur. It added that this rollout would take place over the next few months. Shah presented the expansion as part of the wider growth of the cooperative sector.
Moving beyond dairy and sugar
Shah said cooperatives were now moving into many new sectors, well beyond traditional areas such as dairy and sugar. He also counted fertiliser and banking among the older, established fields. Cooperatives, he said, handle nearly 20 per cent of agricultural credit. They also manage 35 per cent of fertiliser distribution, and account for 31 per cent of sugar production.
Shah said model bye-laws now allow PACS to take up more than 25 activities. He said all states, including West Bengal, have adopted these bye-laws. According to the statement, PACS no longer just provide credit. These bodies now cover retail, storage, healthcare, fuel and digital services. Shah framed this as a move towards stronger local institutions.
The statement said 394 PACS have applied for retail fuel outlets, of which three outlets have already been commissioned. It added that more than 54,000 PACS now function as Common Service Centres. Alongside this, 4,248 PACS have been approved to run Jan Aushadhi Kendras. Shah said the aim of these steps was to widen the services available to members.
Seed production and new national bodies
Shah said a national cooperative had been formed especially for seed production. He expressed confidence that it would become the country's largest non-governmental seed production organisation within three years. He placed it alongside other national efforts meant to scale up cooperative work. Shah also said the ministry had mapped out the issues and opportunities across the sector.
He said the ministry had created a cooperative sector database that would help spot gaps and support expansion. Shah also announced the setting up of Tribhuvan Sahkari University at Anand in Gujarat. He said it would address the shortage of human resources and train professionals across banking, dairy, marketing, agriculture and fertilisers.
Shah said professionals would be appointed on merit. He said, "Our goal is to implement professional management in a phased manner from primary cooperative societies to top institutions. This will increase transparency in appointments, improve work efficiency, and also put an effective check on corruption related to appointments." He added that rooting out corruption would build public trust.
Legal changes and the health of banks
Shah said 50 key amendments had been made to the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002. He said these changes had made the system more transparent and democratic. Nine national-level cooperative societies have been formed, he said, of which three are entirely new. Shah also said the flow of credit in the cooperative sector had increased.
He said Urban Cooperative Banks and District Cooperative Banks were progressing steadily. According to Shah, the total business of District Cooperative Banks had crossed Rs 25 lakh crore, up from Rs 19.6 lakh crore earlier. He said the net profit of Urban Cooperative Banks had almost doubled. Gross NPA, he added, had fallen from 12.8 per cent to 6.2 per cent.
Organic farming and a push away from DAP
Shah put weight on organic farming and reducing the use of chemical fertilisers. He said, "We are bringing 100 per cent circular economy in the sugar and dairy sectors." He said manure would be produced as an alternative to DAP, and that it would be cheaper than DAP as well as better in quality. Shah appealed to farmers to give up DAP, or di-ammonium phosphate.
Shah said the cooperative sector could support the goal of a developed India, or Viksit Bharat, by 2047. The reforms and new ventures, he said, were meant to improve the sector's credibility and capacity. He said the ministry's work was focused on transparency and democratic functioning. During the event, Shah laid the foundation stone for and inaugurated several major projects and initiatives, presenting all of them as part of a wider cooperative push.
