Cooperatives have re-emerged as a development instrument with the creation of the Ministry of Cooperation in 2021 and the National Cooperative Policy 2025. Examine their role as an NGO-charity-development institution.

Introduction:

The Ministry of Cooperation, carved from the Ministry of Agriculture on 6 July 2021, and the National Cooperative Policy 2025 — succeeding the 2002 Vaidyanathan Committee architecture — anchor the 'Sahkar se Samriddhi' vision around Article 19(1)(c)'s constitutionally protected freedom to form cooperatives.

Constitutional and statutory base: The 97th Constitutional Amendment Act 2011 inserted Article 43B and Part IXB; in Union of India v. Rajendra N. Shah (2021) the Supreme Court struck down Part IXB for State cooperatives for want of ratification by half the States, retaining it only for multi-State societies under the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act 2002, amended in 2023 to create a Cooperative Election Authority and improve governance audits.

Policy push: The National Cooperative Policy 2025 targets 3 lakh new Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) by 2027 and 2 lakh dairy and fishery cooperatives. Cabinet approval (June 2022) of Rs 2,516 crore for computerising all 63,000 PACS converts them into multi-service common service centres, linking JAM trinity delivery at the village level.

Institutional architecture: NCDC under the NCDC Act 1962 and NABARD provide credit; Amul/GCMMF, IFFCO and Kerala's Kudumbashree show that cooperatives can be development NGOs, banking platforms and welfare delivery agents simultaneously, but Union-State concurrency after Rajendra Shah requires Inter-State Council coordination on legislative competence.

Way forward / Conclusion:

Reconcile concurrent jurisdiction through Inter-State Council convergence, statutorily protect cooperative autonomy, link PACS digitisation with JAM-anchored delivery, and benchmark outcomes against Vaidyanathan Committee's audit-and-recapitalisation conditionalities for cooperative banks.