Amit Shah’s all new ‘Ministry of Cooperation’ – What is it? And how does it affect you?

The reshuffle in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi cabinet yesterday saw many big faces being dropped while some dark horses received keys to important ministries. However, one newly formed ministry that relatively went under the radar was the ‘Ministry of Cooperation’. Formed a day before the rejig in the cabinet, Union Home Minister Amit Shah will take additional charge of the newly-set up Ministry along with his current portfolio. Meanwhile, BL Verma will be the Minister of State in the Ministry of Cooperation.

“Sahkar se samriddhi” (Prosperity from cooperation) is Amit Shah’s new Ministry’s vision statement, according to a release from the Cabinet Secretariat circulated yesterday.

The press release further added, “This ministry will provide a separate administrative, legal, and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country. It will help deepen co-operatives as a true people-based movement reaching up to the grassroots.”

During the finance budget speech, earlier this year in February, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is still holding onto her Ministry had suggested the government form a separate administration that can help in the development of multi-state cooperatives.

She had said, “The government is committed to the development of multi-state cooperatives and will provide all support to them. To further streamline the ‘ease of doing business’ for cooperatives, I propose to set up a separate administrative structure for them.”

Through the new ministry, the Central Government has signaled its deep commitment to community-based developmental partnership. While polarising economic pundits have sparring sessions over capitalistic and communist models of economic development, the Modi government is delving deeper into India’s ancient history of using cooperatives to make the entire economic model, a people-based movement.

The ministry will work to streamline processes for ”ease of doing business” for cooperatives and enable the development of multi-state cooperatives (MSCS).

Buoyed by the formation of the new ministry, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took to Twitter to extend his compliments to the Prime Minister.

“Cooperative movement is integral to achieve inclusive development at the grassroots. My compliments to Adarniya Pradhan Mantri @narendramodi ji for putting this movement on national priority by creating a dedicated Ministry of Cooperation. This is a giant leap forward,” tweeted Sarma.

Similarly, Union Minister Piyush Goyal, hailing the creation of the ministry, called it ‘another visionary step’.

“In another visionary step, PM @NarendraModi ji has created a new Ministry of Co-operation for realising the vision of ‘Sahkar se Samriddhi’. This will give a massive boost to co-operative movement and create a true people’s momentum for development,” tweeted Goyal.

PM Modi really went all out in his cabinet reshuffle and has injected the much-needed freshness required to liven things up. For him, performance matters, and ‘ruthless’ is the keyword that has been passed all along to the newly sworn ministers and their respective ministries.