Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government announced for creation of a new “Ministry of Cooperation” on July 6, 2021 ahead of cabinet reshuffle.
Key Points
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Ministry will provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework to sustain cooperative movement in India.
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Ministry has been created to realise the vision of ‘Sahkar se Samriddhi’ (Prosperity through cooperatives).
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Ministry will work to streamline processes for ease of doing business for cooperatives and enable development of multi-state cooperatives.
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With the creation of this ministry, there will now be a total of 41 central government ministries.
Background
First reshuffle after PM Modi-led NDA government started its second term in office in 2019 is was massive. It saw several new faces being appointed as ministers. Proposal to set up separate administrative structure for cooperatives was first proposed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while delivering union budget speech in 2021. Demand for a separate ministry for cooperative sector at national level also came from Sahakar Bharati.
Demand for merging ministries
There have been recommendations since 2014 from bureaucratic panels to merge ministries linked to same sector. In the first term, PM Modi led government had merged two ministries, urban development, and housing & urban poverty alleviation and a new ministry “urban affairs ministry” was created in 2017 by merging them.
Second Ministry under Modi govt 2.0
Ministry of Cooperation is second ministry created since 2019 after the Modi government came to power for second term and created Jal Shakti ministry. However, it is all way different than new Ministry of Cooperation. Jal Shakti Ministry was created by integrating two existing ministries namely, Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, and Drinking Water & Sanitation ministry. This integration was done in line with Modi’s mantra of ‘minimum government, maximum governance.