Page 21 - NIS English 01-15 December, 2025

सहकाररता
International Year of Cooperatives COVER STORY

designated as Bank Mitras of central
and state cooperative banks. They Farmers’ Path to Self-Reliance...
are also being provided with micro
ATMs to provide doorstep financial The Ministry of Cooperation has launched
services. Nearly 10,000 micro ATMs the Self-Reliance Campaign to increase the
have been distributed in Gujarat. production of pulses (tur, lentil, and black
n To expand the reach of cooperative gram) in the country and reduce dependence
banks and provide dairy cooperative on imports. Maize production is also being
members with the necessary promoted to meet the targets of the ethanol
liquidity, RuPay Kisan Credit Cards blending program. NCCF and NAFED have
are being issued to cooperative been assigned the responsibility for this. NCCF
society members. e-samyukti and NAFED have launched the
e-samridh portal for farmer registration. This
n The conversion of 1,000 existing
fisheries cooperatives into Fish portal guarantees the purchase of the entire crop
of tur, urad, lentil, and maize from registered
Farmer Producer Organizations farmers at the Minimum Support Price (MSP).
(FFPOs) has also been initiated, However, if market prices exceed the MSP,
for which business plans are farmers can earn higher profits by selling
being prepared by the Cluster their produce in the open market. To
Best Business Organizations. 70 date, more than 4.141 million farmers
FFPOs have already been registered are registered on the e-samyukti portal,
to facilitate market linkages and and 11.07 lakh farmers are registered
processing facilities for fishermen.
on NAFED’s e-samridhi portal.
n A central scheme, "Grant-in-
Aid to the National Cooperative
Development Corporation
(NCDC)," with an outlay of ₹2,000 n Cooperatives were allowed to register as 'buyers' on GeM, enabling them
crore for the period 2025-26 to to procure goods and services from approximately 67 lakh vendors with
2028-29, has been approved. This cost-effective procurement and greater transparency. More than 574
will enable the NCDC to raise cooperative societies have been onboarded.
approximately ₹20,000 crore from n The Cooperative Ranking Framework for evaluating and ranking
the open market over four years. cooperatives was launched in January 2025. The National Cooperative
Approximately 2.9 crore members Database portal can generate rankings across seven key sectors.
of 13,288 cooperative societies
across the country, covering diverse n The Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002, was amended under
sectors such as dairy, animal the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2023, to
husbandry, fisheries, sugar, textiles, strengthen governance in multi-state cooperative societies, enhance
food processing, warehousing and transparency and accountability, and improve the electoral process.
cold storage, labour, and women-led n An amount of more than Rs 4,548 crore has been returned to 22.56
cooperatives, are expected to benefit lakh valid depositors of the Sahara Group cooperative societies in a
from this scheme. transparent manner through a portal.

United Nations General Assembly declared 2025 the the world, cooperatives are a model, but for India,
International Year of Cooperatives, with the theme: they are the foundation of culture and a way of life.
“Cooperatives Build a Better World.” Cooperatives have become a force multiplier that
Indeed, cooperatives have been the vanguard of transforms individual strengths into collective social
Indian culture for decades. This idea is India’s idea. strengths. It can also be said that cooperation is
Cooperatives are the very essence of Indian culture, deeply rooted in the foundation of Indian society,
and India has championed the idea of cooperatives fostering the spirit of collaborative achievement of
and promoted them throughout the world. For social and economic goals. However, for a long time,

December 1-15, 2025 || NEW INDIA SAMACHAR 19