Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Minister Amit Shah launched the digital portal of the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS) office in Pune, Maharashtra where several dignitaries including Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Eknath Shinde and Union Minister of State for Ministry of Cooperation, B L Verma, among others, were present.
In his address, Shah said that the culture of cooperatives spread across the country from Maharashtra only and Cooperative model of Maharashtra is taking the cooperative movement forward in the country. The cooperative movement has progressed and flourished only in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka, which is, the parts of the earlier Mumbai state, he added.
Shah said the work of the Central Registrar (CRCS) office, which operates the Multi State Cooperatives, is becoming completely digital today, all the work of cooperative societies like opening new branches, expansion to other states or auditing, will be done online now.
This portal has been created including all the activities of Registration, amendment of bylaws, auditing, monitoring of auditing by the Central Registrar, the entire process of election, development of Human Resources, vigilance and training and it is a kind of complete portal in itself, he stated.
Shah said that 1555 multi-state cooperative societies of the country will be benefited by the portal launched today and 42% of these 1555 societies are in Maharashtra only, this shows the strength of cooperative movement in Maharashtra. He said that all the work of these 1555 societies will now be done through this portal.
He added that on same lines, Modi Government is going to computerize the offices of registrar of cooperative societies of the states which will ease the communication with 8 lakh cooperative societies across the country.
The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that the cooperative movement cannot move forward without modernity, transparency and accountability. He said that to increase the acceptance of cooperative movement, transparency has to be increased and accountability has to be fixed. He said that only such a transparent system can create a connect between crores of people of the country.
Shah said that India has given many success stories of cooperatives like Amul, IFFCO and KRIBHCO to the world, now we have to give new momentum to the cooperative movement by taking these along.
Referring to the amended Multistate Cooperative Societies Act, he said that under this law, we have made electoral reforms, set many new dimensions for cooperative governance, arrangements for financial discipline and supply of funds, arrangements for ease of business, an independent body like Election Commission for elections, changes in the rules of running the board and has fixed the responsibility of the Board of Directors and employees to bring transparency.
He also mentioned new initiatives for the PACS and said that 93000 PACS have been made in the last 70 years and 3 lakh new PACS will be made in the country in the next 5 years.
In his speech Shah also referred to the approval of the world’s largest and multidimensional storage scheme and added Maharashtra should take maximum advantage of this scheme and there should not be a single Tehsil left without cooperative storage facility.
Shah said that 95% work of creating the National Cooperative Database has been completed. We are also coming up with a New Cooperative Policy. We are building a cooperative university through which the system of technical education of the cooperative and all its extensions will also be linked to it. He said that Shri Modi has created 3 new multistate cooperative societies.
The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that earlier step-motherly treatment was given to cooperatives, but today, under the leadership of Shri Modi, this step-motherly treatment of cooperatives has ended.
Other highlights of his speech were the resolution of the problem of sugar mills, increase in the limit on housing finance for urban cooperatives, loaning to real estate, permission for doorstep banking by the UCBs, new branches for them and One Time Settlement for Urban Cooperative Banks by bringing them at par with nationalized banks. He also that under the vision of “Sahkar se Samridhi” of Shri Modi, the Ministry of Cooperation has made a new beginning today by launching this digital portal.
