Three southern states are about to get a new retail network built entirely around women — and Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah opened the door in Kollam, Kerala, on Saturday, 26 September 2026. At a multi-initiative launch event, Shah inaugurated several programmes of the National Cooperative Consumers' Federation of India (NCCF) targeting women's economic empowerment, affordable essentials, and education support for farmers' daughters.

She-Mart: 300 outlets across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka

The centrepiece of the event was the launch of 'She-Mart' — an NCCF retail initiative designed to serve as a market bridge for women entrepreneurs. The scheme is planned to expand into a chain of 300 outlets spread across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, providing women-led businesses a dedicated, structured platform to reach consumers. Shah described the initiative as a means of drawing more women into trade and commerce, framing it explicitly within Prime Minister Narendra Modi's stated vision of 'Stree Netritva Mein Vikas' — 'women-led development.'

The cooperative sector's retail infrastructure is the delivery mechanism here. Rather than a standalone government scheme, She-Mart sits inside the NCCF's existing federation network, which gives it an organisational spine that direct grant programmes often lack. Whether 300 outlets become operational on schedule across three states will be the real test.

NCCF and NAFED mobile vans bring subsidised essentials to Kollam

Alongside She-Mart, Shah also flagged off NCCF and NAFED mobile vans that will distribute onions, Bharat Atta (flour), and Bharat Rice at affordable prices to consumers in the region. The mobile van mechanism is not new — NAFED, established in 1958 as the apex body for agricultural cooperative marketing, has deployed similar price-stabilisation tools before — but its extension into southern consumer markets signals a deliberate southward push for centrally-coordinated commodity relief.

Inflationary pressure on essential food items has made these van-based interventions politically and practically significant. Reaching consumers directly, without depending on local retail chains, keeps prices in check at the last mile.

NAFED Kalyan Scholarship cheques for farmers' daughters

The event also saw the distribution of scholarship cheques under the 'NAFED Kalyan Scholarship Scheme' for the daughters of farmers — a quieter but concrete gesture toward educational access within agricultural households. It adds an education layer to what is otherwise a commerce-and-supply-chain-focused programme, reinforcing the event's overarching theme: cooperative institutions as tools of household-level uplift, not just commodity logistics.

The Ministry of Cooperation, created in July 2021 specifically to give the sector focused political and administrative attention, has been using events like this one to demonstrate that the ministry is not a ceremonial addition — that it can move programmes into states, partner with apex bodies like NCCF and NAFED, and produce visible ground-level outputs. Kollam is a data point in that argument.

Three hundred She-Mart outlets, thousands of farmers' daughters potentially in school, and affordable rice and flour at a van near you — the cooperative sector just made its southern debut in a very deliberate way.