With the objective of giving a boost to co-operative movement in the country, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday will lay the foundation stone of India’s first national-level cooperative university, being established at Anand in Gujarat.
The decision to establish Tribhuvan Cooperative University is a historic and visionary initiative for capacity building in the cooperative sector and to realise the vision of ‘Sahkar se Samriddhi’. This university will prove to be an important step towards realising the Triveni of cooperation, innovation and employment, a press statement said.
The aim of establishing the Tribhuvan Cooperative University is to prepare professional and trained manpower to meet the growing needs of the cooperative sector. It will provide specialised education, training and research opportunities in areas such as cooperative management, finance, law and rural development. It will empower cooperative institutions at the grassroots level by promoting innovation, capacity building and best practices, improve governance and accelerate inclusive and sustainable rural economic development.
Based on the National Education Policy 2020, the academic structure of the University will offer a range of flexible and multidisciplinary programmes, including PhD, degrees at the managerial level, diplomas at the supervisory level and certificates at the operational level. It will set up subject-specific schools at its campus and in other States and create a national network to standardise the quality of cooperative education and training. To create a national network, the university will try to connect more than 200 existing cooperative institutions in the next four years.
To meet the skill development and capacity building needs of India’s estimated number of about 40 lakh cooperative personnel and 80 lakh board members, the university will train around 20 lakh personnel of cooperative societies like Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), Dairy, Fisheries, etc. in the next five years.
To address the shortage of qualified teachers, the university will develop a strong teacher base through PhD programmes based on cooperative studies. At present, cooperative education is limited to a few States and scattered across various institutions, which is inadequate to meet the growing demand in this sector.
There is currently no institutional mechanism in India to support research and development focused on innovation and affordable technologies in cooperatives, especially for rural areas.
Keeping this in mind, a dedicated research and development council will be set up in the university which will undertake research and development in the cooperative sector and also promote it in affiliated institutions.
Apart from this, it will coordinate with national and international reputed institutions to establish the world’s best practices in India.
As regards the function on Saturday, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel and Assembly Speaker Shankar will also attend the event. Union Ministers of State for Cooperation Krishan Pal Gurjar and Muralidhar Mohol, Education Minister of Gujarat Government Rishikesh Patel and Cooperation Minister Jagdish Vishwakarma, Secretary of the Ministry of Cooperation Dr Ashish Kumar Bhutani, Vice Chancellor of TSU Dr JM Vyas and many other distinguished guests will also be present at the event.
