Shah meets Cooperatives amid Opposition's federalism assault charge

The delegation apprised the minister about the problems and challenges confronting the cooperative movement

Amid mounting Opposition criticism over the newly created Cooperation Ministry, Home Minister Amit Shah, who is also in charge of the new ministry on Saturday, held a meeting with some leaders from the cooperative sector and asserted that the government is determined to make cooperatives and all cooperative institutions more empowered.

Shah held the meeting chairman of the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) Dileep Sanghani, the chairman and the managing director of the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) B S Nakai and U S Awasthi respectively and chairman of the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) Bijender Singh amid a row over the government's decision to set up the new ministry.

"Today met @ncuicoop Chairman Shri Dileep Sanghani ji, @IFFCO_PR Chairman Shri B S Nakai ji, Managing Director Shri U S Awasthi ji and @nafedindia Chairman Dr Bijendra Singh ji.

"Under the leadership of Modi ji, we are determined to make cooperatives and all cooperative institutions more empowered," Shah tweeted in Hindi.

The next big step on it could be a conference with representatives of state-level cooperatives to be organized by NCUI, IFFCO and other cooperatives for discussing pertinent issues confronting the cooperative movement.

Shah said the government is determined to make cooperatives and all cooperative institutions more empowered and added asked the cooperatives like IFFCO and KRIBHCO to work in the field of seed production using vacant land of 38,000 hectares, as well as, in organic farming.

The minister also assured that the government is committed to strengthening the cooperative movement in the country, the benefits of which would go to the grass-root level cooperatives, according to a release of NCUI.

While Union Minister Piyush Goyal said that the Ministry of Cooperation has been set up in line with Sardar Patel's dream and asserted that it can really help the production as well as trade in the country, a number of Opposition leaders have questioned the intent of the government behind the decision.

CPI-M's Sitaram Yechury asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi the reason behind the decision reminding him that Cooperative Societies is a State Subject in Constitution’s 7th Schedule and called it another assault on federalism.

Congress leader from Kerala, Ramesh Chennithala, on Friday said his party would consider taking the legal path against the formation of the ministry.

However, the union ministers of the Modi government have gone the whole hog in hailing the move.

Shah's meeting with Cooperative heads came three days after he was given the charge of this newly-created ministry, a fulfilment of the promise made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech.