Co-op best model for India: Shah
Gandhinagar, Nov. 28: The co-operative model is the only model of economic development, which will work to achieve an all-encompassing and all-inclusive development of a huge country like India with a population of 130 crore, Union cooperation minister Amit Shah said on Sunday.
Addressing a gathering here after inaugurating a milk powder factory, a poly film manufacturing plant and other projects of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) set up with an investment of Rs 415 crore, Shah said the co-operative model has the capacity to make everyone prosperous, and there is a need to increase the number of successful co-operative models (like Amul) and bring them under one umbrella.
He also suggested Amul to work out a similar model for organic farming to encourage more farmers to adopt the practice, as fertilisers were causing soil degradation and diseases like cancer.
Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recognised cooperatives as the best economic model for the country having a population of 130 crore when he was the chief minister of Gujarat.
"It is a very difficult job to take development to all and make everyone participate in the process of development in a country with a population of 130 crore," Shah said, adding many pundits failed to figure out which economic model will fit the requirements of this country.
"But, 75 years after the country saw many rules, the country's prime minister (Modi) tested the model and had realised as the then chief minister of Gujarat, that if there is any economic model for an all-encompassing, allinclusive economic development of a country of 130 crore population, then that is only the co-operative," he said.
Shah said he believes the field of cooperation has the capacity to make everyone prosper.
"Co-operative is the only field which has the capacity to give a new pace to the economy, and make all prosperous, and Amul is a living example of this. Amul is an example of what 36 lakh women (dairy farmers) can achieve if they work together with transparency," he said.
"In a way, (the Amul model) is the most successful experiment of women empowerment,” the minister said.
Shah also suggested the Amul authorities to develop a model to ensure farmers adopting organic and natural farm practices get better prices for their produce and encourage others for the same.