The Union Government has created a new Ministry of Cooperation with an aim to strengthen the cooperative movement in the country.

With the creation of the Ministry of Cooperation, there will now be a total of 41 central government ministries. Several of these ministries also have separate departments and organizations under them.

What defines a Cooperative?

• A cooperative is “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned enterprise”.
• Cooperatives are democratically owned by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors.

Ministry of Cooperation

• The ministry has been created for realizing the vision of ‘sahkar se samriddhi’ (through cooperation to prosperity).
• The NGO Sahakar Bharati, whose founder member Satish Kashinath Marathe is a part-time director on the RBI board, says it was the first to pitch for the creation of a separate ministry for the cooperative sector.
• It will provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country.
• It will help deepen cooperatives as a true people-based movement reaching up to the grassroots.
• The ministry will work to streamline processes for ‘ease of doing business’ for cooperatives and enable the development of multi-state cooperatives (MSCS).

Why need such Ministry?

• In our country, a Co-operative based economic development model is very relevant where each member works with a spirit of responsibility.
• This creation has signalled its deep commitment to community-based developmental partnerships.

Second new ministry created so far

• The Ministry of Cooperation is the second ministry to be created since 2019 after the Modi government came to power for the second time.
• Soon after taking charge, the government had created the Jal Shakti ministry.
• However, it was not altogether new as the Ministry of Cooperation.
• It was created by integrating two existing ministries dealing with water — Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, and Drinking Water & Sanitation ministry.

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