With an aim to help primary cooperative societies play bigger roles in AtmaNirbhar Bharat call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Agriculture Ministry on Tuesday launched Sahakar Pragya, an innovative capacity building initiative for the farmers associated with such entities in the country.
Unveiling the programme here online, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that farmers in primary cooperatives in rural areas of the country would be trained under Sahakar Pragya by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), an autonomous body under the Ministry.
This is in keeping with the Prime Minister’s vision to make farmers in primary cooperatives in rural areas atma nirbhar (self-reliant) in the post-Covid economic reconstruction, he added.
Sundeep K Nayak, Managing Director of NCDC explained that Sahakar Pragya will be implemented through an elaborate network of 18 Regional Training Centres across the country. These Centres are run by the Haryana-based Laxmanrao Inamdar National Academy for Cooperative Research and Development (LINAC) under the NCDC.
Under Sahakar Pragya, forty five training modules for transferring knowledge, skills and organisational capacities have been prepared, said Nayak, pointing out that LINAC has chalked out a plan to train about 5,000 farmers in cooperative societies in a year.
“The 45 dedicated training modules would equip the cooperative societies to run their affairs in professional business terms of market economy,” Nayak said, asserting that Cooperatives have a major role in the AtmaNirbhar Bharat initiative.
Currently, India has a network of over 8.50 lakh cooperative societies with about 290 million members. Ninety-four per cent of the farmers in the country are members of at least one cooperative society. Cooperatives lend strength to farmers to minimise risks in agriculture and allied sectors and act as shield against exploitation by unscrupulous traders, said the official.