Cooperatives lead India’s grassroots transformation

The main theme of this year’s Cooperative Week—“Cooperatives as Vehicles for Self-Reliant India”—reminds us of the essential role of the cooperative system in India’s entire development journey. Since independence, cooperative organizations have built the foundation of self-reliance and collective strength of the common people in all areas of the rural economy, agricultural production, milk cooperatives, handlooms, small and cottage industries, consumer cooperatives.

In India, millions of cooperative organizations are currently directly or indirectly associated with the livelihood and development of crores of people. The Central Government has given special importance to this sector by setting up the Ministry of Cooperatives. In the case of cooperative organizations, professional management, transparency, digitalization, online audit, quality improvement and timely financial support—all these steps are making the cooperative system stronger. The main idea of Self-Reliant India is to empower local people to improve themselves using local resources, and cooperatives can best utilize that power.

Although, now a days, many cooperatives in the country are moving towards success, yet, several states are facing challenges due to lack of professional management, limited funds and technological backwardness. Therefore, this year’s theme reminds us that development is not only empowering the people of big cities, but we can easily connect the people of remote areas to the mainstream of self-reliance through cooperatives.

In this context, the initiatives of the cooperative system in West Bengal are particularly noteworthy. Modernization of the state’s PACS (Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies), active role of cooperatives in Agricultural credit and crop procurement, programs to strengthen dairy cooperatives and handloom cooperatives—are giving a new direction to the rural economy. The state government’s ‘Cooperative Development Project’, ‘Cooperative Assistance’, programmes to link rural women’s self-help groups with the cooperative structure, schemes to enhance market connectivity, giving priority to cooperatives in milk and grain procurement - these are bringing income, empowerment and livelihood stability to the hands of the people. At the same time, the transparent functioning of cooperative banks and agricultural cooperative societies has further strengthened the rural financial system.

Self-reliant India is not just a slogan; it is a vision of a future where people will move forward relying on their own production, their own resources and their own organization. And the real driving force on this path is cooperatives. Because cooperatives mean collective responsibility, collective decisions, fair distribution and people’s initiative for the welfare of all.

Therefore, Cooperative Week 2025 inspired us to - using cooperatives as a tool to take every village and every person of India towards the path of self-reliance.