NEW DELHI: India is to set up its first national-level university in the cooperative sector, the Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah, told Lok Sabha, the lower House of Parliament, today.
It will ‘strengthen the cooperative movement in India by imparting technical and management education and training in the cooperative sector,’ Shah said in answer to questions by Members of Parliament.
The proposed university will also promote research and development to strengthen the cooperative movement through a network of affiliated institutions.
India’s cooperative movement began 120 years ago. But a national-level Ministry of Cooperation was set up only three years ago.
The Ministry of Cooperation has since incorporated entities based on the cooperative movement in the Ministries of Agriculture, and Farmers Welfare into the new organization.
The new Ministry aims to create a better ‘administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening India’s cooperative movement and deepen co-operatives as a true people-b
ased movement reaching up to the grassroots to develop a cooperative based economic model,’ Shah said.
He pointed out that cooperatives are an ideal model which allows an individual to begin with small investments and create big enterprises.
The new university envisions the creation of skilled manpower for the cooperative movement, the Minister said.
Source: Emirates News Agency