Prosperity through cooperation

IN JUNE, THE United National General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution proclaiming 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives with 'Cooperatives Build a Better World' as the theme.

- ROHIT KUMAR SINGH

Marking its official launch recently in New Delhi, attended by global leaders and representatives of the United Nations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted the importance of these grassroots business enterprises, mostly owned by their members, saying cooperatives are the vital cog in India's economic wheels of progress, in delivering benefits to the poor, and that the sector serves as a glue for the Global South.

The Global South also feels the same way. At the conference, Bhutan Prime Minister Dasho Tshering Tobgay said the Himalayan country was building a new city spread over 2,500 sq km based on a cooperative model. While Tobgay emphasised the need to strengthen cooperation among cooperatives to guarantee global prosperity, for Fiji's deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica, cooperatives are the Pathways out of Poverty.

India's cooperative sector is over a century old. Cooperatives are the foundation of Indian culture and a way of life. The Cooperative Credit Society Act, enacted in 1904, provided a legal basis for cooperative societies. India, or rather Bharat, now has over 850,000 cooperative societies accounting for 25% of all cooperatives worldwide. Nearly 98% of rural India is covered by cooperatives. Around 300 million, or one out of every five Indians, are associated with the cooperative sector.