Key Points

The International Cooperative Year is being celebrated this year, inspired by the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the country's first Cooperation Minister Amit Shah. The first quarterly meeting of the high-level committee for planning the statewide celebration of this year was held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.

During this meeting, a review was conducted of the action plan for organising various programmes throughout the year as part of the International Cooperative Year celebration.

In this meeting, CM Patel stated that Gujarat, recognised as the birthplace of the cooperative revolution in India, has a great opportunity to accelerate rural empowerment by promoting new cooperative models and thereby make the International Cooperative Year - 2025 a grand success. He guided that programmes should be organised as per the action plan and celebrated successfully with the participation of cooperative institutions and citizens so that the theme "Cooperatives Build a Better World" is truly realised in Gujarat.

The high-level meeting, held in the presence of Agriculture Minister Raghavji Patel, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Kuvarji Bavaliya, and Minister of State for Cooperation Jagdish Vishwakarma, featured a presentation on the success of various programmes conducted from January 2025 to June 2025 under the International Cooperative Year.

These programmes included cooperative-themed tableaus in district-level Republic Day parades on January 26, seminars on cooperation for women and youth, state-wide tree plantations under the "Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam" initiative by cooperative institutions, unions, and societies, and successful sanitation drives at the rural level.

Further, the planning of upcoming events to be organised under the International Year of Cooperation was also finalised. A detailed presentation on this planning highlighted that, under the 'Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat' initiative, programmes on Sardar and Cooperation will be organised on July 5 and 6 in Anand to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, in the esteemed presence of Union Minister of Cooperation and Home Affairs Amit Shah.

On the morning of July 5, Minister Amit Shah will perform the foundation stone laying ceremony of the country's first cooperative university, Tribhuvan Cooperative University, in Anand. Later, a "Sahakar Samvad" (Cooperative Dialogue) will be held under his chairmanship at Science City, Ahmedabad. This dialogue program will also include participation from officials of cooperative institutions from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

On July 6, the Union Minister for Cooperation and Home Affairs will also inaugurate new projects of NDDB and Amul in Anand.

Further, Cooperative Week will be celebrated across the state from July 1 to 6. As part of the International Cooperative Year, around 30 lakh children aged 3 to 6 years will be provided with nutritious food items such as milk, moong (green gram), and chikki through milk unions, cooperative banks, and PACS during the months of September-October.

Minister of State for Cooperation Jagdish Vishwakarma shared details of a major campaign of the International Year of Cooperatives during the meeting, stating that in order to fulfil the vision of "Sahkar Se Samriddhi", people associated with the cooperative sector, especially farmers, animal husbandry, and fisheries workers, will send postcards to the Prime Minister from villages and towns across the state, thanking him for the cooperative sector schemes that have contributed to their economic upliftment. He also said that during the International Cooperative Year, workshops and seminars for the empowerment of PACS will also be organised at the village level.

The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Pankaj Joshi, Additional Chief Secretary of Revenue Dr Jayanti Ravi, Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture and Cooperation Anju Sharma, Principal Secretaries T. Natarajan, R.C. Meena, Milind Torawane, and Sandip Kumar, along with Additional Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Avantika Singh, Secretary Dr Vikrant Pandey, and other senior officials.

- ANI