Synopsis
Union Minister Amit Shah announced plans for ‘Sahakar Taxi’ to become India’s largest cooperative taxi company. He detailed a vision to establish a cooperative in every Panchayat, creating over 50 crore members. This initiative aims to boost the cooperative sector’s GDP contribution. Digital services and a unified banking technology umbrella will empower rural banks.
IANSWhile over 51,000 drivers have registered during the trial phase of the ‘Sahakar Taxi’, an initiate of the Ministry of Cooperation, Union Minister for Cooperation Amit Shah maintained that in coming years, it will become the country’s largest cooperative taxi company.
Shah was inaugurating EARTH Summit 2025 at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar, on Friday.
Shah said that while Mahatma Gandhi’s vision was that if India has to progress, its development vision cannot be realized without keeping villages at the centre a few years after Independence, we forgot this principle. Agriculture, animal husbandry, and cooperatives — the three main pillars of rural development — remained neglected for a long time.
In 2014, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, a historic transformation began that made rural development the core axis of national development, he said.
He further said that with a holistic vision, it has been decided that in the coming years, a cooperative institution will be established in every Panchayat of the country. Through cooperatives, more than 50 crore active members will be created, and the cooperative sector’s contribution to GDP will be increased compared to the present level.
He further said that thousands of crores of low-cost deposits have increased through the ‘Cooperation Among Cooperatives’ model in Gujarat. Now markets, dairies, PACS, and all cooperatives have been integrated under the district cooperative umbrella. He said that a model has been implemented wherein all cooperative institutions maintain their accounts and savings only with cooperative banks, which has significantly increased low-cost deposits and has begun the process of increasing the cooperative sector’s credit capacity fivefold — a model to be applied nationwide.
While smaller cooperatives lacked the capacity to bear the cost of technological infrastructure. NABARD has taken a historic step by providing 13+ digital services to all rural banks through ‘Sahakar Sarathi’, Shah said. He added that all district central, state, agricultural, and urban cooperative banks will now come under a single technology umbrella; modern banking technologies will be available without financial burden; recovery, disbursement, KYC, legal documentation, appraisal, website creation, etc., will become fully tech-enabled; and real-time tracking systems will be implemented in rural cooperative banks. With RBI’s support, a strong cooperative banking framework is being developed, and soon a farmer holding an e-KCC will enjoy facilities comparable to high-end international credit cards, he added further.
He further said that around 49 lakh farmers are now engaged in certified organic production, and more than 40 organic products are available online. A national lab network is being established in collaboration with Bharat Organics and Amul. The target is to raise India’s share in the global organic market by 2035. He said that multi-state cooperatives will purchase produce from farmers, test it, and export it to global markets, ensuring that the benefits go directly into farmers’ bank accounts.