Urban Development, Town Planning and Cooperation Minister Suresh Bhardwaj participated in the conference of Co-operative Ministers of the states organized under the chairmanship of Union Home and Co-operation Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi today.
While addressing the conference Suresh Bhardwaj said that cooperatives have an old history in India and the cooperative movement in Himachal had its origin in the year 1892 with the formation of a cooperative society at Panjawar in Una district of the state.
He said that an important initiative in the cooperative movement of the country was the formation of a separate cooperative ministry by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 6thJuly, 2021 and the Prime Minister also gave the country the mantra of 'Sahakar Se Samridhi' (Prosperity through Cooperation).
He said that Cooperation Minister Amit Shah has underlined the important role of cooperatives in making India a 5 trillion dollar economy. He said that work was going on at a brisk pace to increase the coverage of primary cooperative societies in Himachal as well.
At present 4881 cooperative societies are registered in the state, out of which 2178 are primary cooperative societies, he added.Suresh Bhardwaj said that according to the 97th constitutional amendment, some changes have been made in the cooperative law of the state to give impetus to the cooperative movement.
Now co-operative societies can choose auditors from the panel of auditors made by the State government in their general meeting. With this, more people will get employment and there will be transparency in the work of cooperative societies, he added.
He said that the FPO (Farmer-Producer Organisation) revolution has started in the country and Himachal Pradesh has taken an initiative in the form of Yuva Sahakar Yojana with a view to engage the youth in this new form of cooperatives. In some places in the state, apart from the products selected in the central schemes, the orchardists-farmers of apple and other crops were being associated with this new form of cooperative, he added.
The committees formed under this scheme will have at least 60 percent youth and the inspectors of the department have been authorized to help the committees run. A task force has also been constituted for the smooth implementation of this programme. So far, 16 new FPOs have been formed in the state as per the plan of the Center and the work of about 30 FPOs was in the final stage.
The Cooperation Minister said that about 19 lakh people were directly associated with cooperatives in the state. He said that against the target of 50 societies of the Center government in the scheme to convert Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) into Multipurpose Service Centers, 46 societies have been converted and work of conversion of 19 others was in progress.
State and district level committees have been formed by making appropriate budget provision for computerization of these primary agricultural cooperative societies, he said.Suresh Bhardwaj said that the State government has also prepared a training plan in the cooperative sector.
For this, HIMCOFED has been made the nodal agency. He said that a program for training related to FPOs has also been prepared in the state. The work of imparting cooperative training to the members of the Management Committee is being done at the state, district and block levels.