The Chief Minister's Office of Rajasthan on Monday, 6 July 2026 shared that Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah addressed the 5th Foundation Day ceremony of the Ministry of Cooperation, calling for technology-driven reforms, expansion of e-PACS, digital payment systems, and a more transparent cooperative structure to realise the vision of 'Sahkar se Samridhi' (Prosperity through Cooperation).

Context

Amit Shah used the occasion to urge farmers across the country to adopt natural and organic farming in greater numbers. He also paid tribute to Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee on the occasion of his 125th birth anniversary, honouring the political leader who founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The event brought together central and state leadership to assess five years of cooperative sector reform.

Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma of Rajasthan was present at the ceremony and expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah for their focus on the cooperative sector. He said that unprecedented work was being done across the country in the field of cooperatives.

Policy Backdrop

The Ministry of Cooperation was established in July 2021 as a dedicated central ministry to give focused attention to India's vast cooperative network. Before its creation, cooperative policy was managed under the agriculture ministry without a standalone institutional mandate.

A flagship initiative under the ministry — the computerisation of approximately 63,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) — was approved in 2022-23. The e-PACS programme aims to bring digital accounting, loan management, and service delivery to grassroots credit institutions that serve millions of rural households. The 'Sahkar se Samridhi' slogan has anchored the government's messaging around cooperatives as an engine of rural economic uplift.

Stakeholders and Impact

The cooperative framework directly touches crores of farmers, women, youth, livestock farmers, and rural communities across India. CM Bhajanlal Sharma noted that cooperatives have become a vehicle for the economic empowerment of these groups, with the 'Sahkar se Samridhi' model shaping both central and state-level rural programmes.

Rajasthan's participation at the national event underscores the state's alignment with central cooperative reforms. The push for natural and organic farming ties into a broader national sustainable agriculture strategy, with cooperatives positioned as the delivery mechanism for inputs, credit, and market linkages for farmers transitioning away from chemical-intensive cultivation.

What's Next

The immediate focus will be on the roll-out of digital payment systems and e-PACS infrastructure within Rajasthan's cooperative institutions. State-level schemes promoting organic farming clusters are expected to gain momentum as centre-state coordination deepens under the cooperative ministry's five-year framework.

With the ministry now entering its sixth year, the government's emphasis on technology integration and transparency signals a shift from institution-building to measurable outcomes — making the performance of digitised PACS and farmer uptake of natural farming key benchmarks to watch.