BJP MP Anurag Thakur on Monday, 6 July 2026, extended greetings to India's cooperative community on the fifth Foundation Day of the independent Ministry of Cooperation, crediting the milestone to the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leadership of Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah.

Posting in Hindi on X, Thakur wrote: 'सहकार से समृद्धि' ('Prosperity through cooperation') — extending greetings to the country's cooperative members and citizens on the occasion. He described the five years since the ministry's formation as a period in which cooperatives have registered 'unprecedented progress' and have been established as 'a powerful idea, a people's movement, and a vehicle of inclusive development.'

Context

The Ministry of Cooperation was formally notified on 6 July 2021, becoming India's first independent central ministry dedicated exclusively to the cooperative sector. Prior to this, cooperative affairs were handled under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. The creation of the ministry marked a structural shift in how the central government treats cooperatives — elevating the sector alongside public and private enterprises.

Amit Shah was appointed as the country's first Union Minister of Cooperation at its inception and continues to hold the portfolio. The ministry's formation was framed under the government's guiding principle of 'Sahakar se Samriddhi' — prosperity through cooperation — which Thakur's post echoes directly.

Policy Backdrop

Over the past five years, the ministry has pursued a broad reform agenda. A landmark legislative step was the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Act, 2023, which introduced governance reforms and established a new Cooperative Election Authority to bring greater transparency and accountability to multi-state cooperative bodies.

The ministry also launched an ambitious programme to computerise over 63,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) at the village level, aiming to improve credit access for rural farmers and reduce dependence on informal lending. The broader policy thrust has sought to expand cooperatives into new sectors including housing, health, and retail — beyond their traditional base in agriculture and dairy.

Stakeholders and Impact

The cooperative sector in India has deep roots in rural and semi-urban economies, with millions of farmers, artisans, and small producers relying on cooperative structures for credit, procurement, and marketing. Thakur's post references 30 crore cooperative members across the country — a figure the government uses to describe the scale of the sector's reach, though independent verification of this specific count is not available.

The PACS computerisation drive and the new multi-state cooperative framework are particularly significant for rural farmers, who form the largest constituency of cooperative members. Governance reforms under the 2023 amendment are intended to reduce political interference in cooperative elections and strengthen member representation.

What's Next

Attention will now turn to the proposed National Cooperative Policy, which is expected to set a long-term roadmap for the sector. The pace of PACS computerisation rollout and new multi-state cooperative registrations in the current fiscal year will serve as key indicators of the ministry's momentum as it enters its sixth year. Thakur's post signals that the BJP intends to continue positioning cooperative expansion as a pillar of its inclusive-growth narrative ahead of future electoral cycles.