New Delhi : Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah inaugurated the National Database. Shah, who is associated with the cooperative movement, believes that ‘Expansion, Development, and Delivery of the cooperative sector will be ensured through the database.’
The demand for the formation of a separate Ministry of Cooperation persisted for decades after independence, but no government paid attention to it. As a result, the condition of the cooperative sector continued to deteriorate. In 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through a televised address, fulfilled the task of establishing a separate Ministry of Cooperation, entrusting its command to Union Home Minister and BJP stalwart Amit Shah. Shah, who has been associated with the cooperative sector since his early days, has left no stone unturned in empowering cooperative societies in just a few years.
Today, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the skilled guidance of Union Minister for Home and Cooperation Amit Shah, the once ailing cooperative societies have become vibrant. The country has become centralized and computerized. Now, PACS (Primary Agricultural Credit Societies) are being made multifunctional across the country. Amit Shah, who practices the politics of ‘Antyodaya’ (upliftment), repeatedly asserts that by 2027, there will be one PACS in every panchayat in the country. This statement is likely to be true because a national database has been created, which will help identify the gap in the number of cooperative societies in the country and prove helpful in the expansion of cooperatives.
Through the National Database, the information regarding the cooperatives will be available on a click. The National Database is a valuable resource for the policy makers, researchers and the stakeholders that will works a compass towards a direction for development. This database has information has been developed with advanced technology and has information on every aspect of cooperative activities in India. Through the database portal, small cooperative institutions can receive guidance for their expansion.
The database has the potential to connect information from PACS to APEX, from village to city, from mandi to the global market, and from state to international databases. The solution to geographical imbalance, sectoral imbalance, community imbalance, and functional imbalance – all these issues have been finely addressed within this database using tools. Looking at the rise of the cooperative sector, it seems that Modi’s cooperation will bring prosperity, development through digital means, and achieve goals through the database. In the present era, more than 8 lakh cooperatives are registered, and more than 30 crores citizens are connected to these societies.
Modi and Amit Shah, who are engaged in building a new India, have changed the direction and condition of Indian politics. Shah’s nature is to make bold decisions and see them through to fruition, which is why the Ministry of Cooperation was established, and today, the cooperative sector is also developing.