NEW DELHI, Mar 26: The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Tribhuvan Sahkari University Bill, 2025, to establish the country’s first national cooperative university at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) in Gujarat.
The proposed university aims to revolutionise education, research and training in the cooperative sector. The Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah said the university was proposed to be set up in Gujarat because the State government allotted land for it, adding that the university’s jurisdiction would be nationwide.
“The cooperative training institutes in all States will be registered as schools or colleges under the university. It will work on a hub-and-spoke model. It will have degree, diploma, and PhD courses. Around 8 lakh people are expected to get certification from the university per year,” Mr Shah said.
The University is named after Tribhuvan Kashibhai Patel, the founder of cooperative dairy giant Amul, the Minister said. “Before Independence, milk from Anand and Khera villages in Gujarat was purchased by a Mumbai dairy. One day when some farmers demanded more money, the dairy refused to accept the milk. Tribhuvan ji went to Sardar Patel who asked them to leave the path of colonisation and suppression and institute their own cooperative. Started in 1946 with 250 litres of milk, today Amul is India’s most successful dairy brand. Amul’s turnover in 2003 was ₹2,852 crore; today, it is more than ₹60,000 crore, five times more than Hindustan Unilever,” Mr Shah said.
Revolutionary Socialist Party MP N.K Premachandan moved an amendment to the Bill, agreeing that the new University could be named after Tribhuvan Patel, but seeking to rename IRMA after the late Verghese Kurien, known as the Father of The White Revolution, who played a significant role in Amul’s development. The amendment was defeated.
A need was felt for such a University, Mr Shah said, as presently, those running cooperatives largely give jobs to people in their own coteries. “Through this University, jobs will be given to those who have diploma and degree in this sector. There is no specific course for the cooperative sector yet, such as for technicians, those who work in cooperative banks. On the ground, a strong cooperative model will be developed. It will strengthen the rural economy. The apex University will be registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860,” Mr Shah said.
The Minister added that ₹10,000 crore would be infused in the cooperative dairy sector. “It will promote a circular economy. The cooperatives will provide fodder, vaccination even to private dairies. After an animal is dead, the skin and bones will be procured and sold by the cooperatives. This will empower the women as 70% of dairy farmers are women,” he said.
Several members questioned why the University was being opened in Gujarat when other States also have a robust cooperative setup. “You should have built a new University instead of renaming IRMA. I can understand that you cannot open a new University in Gorakhpur but what is the problem with Varanasi, represented by the Prime Minister in the Lok Sabha?” Samajwadi Party MP Aditya Yadav asked, during the discussion on the Bill.
Congress MP Kadiyam Kavya warned that, without any timeline or accountability, the Bill risked becoming yet another grand announcement lost to bureaucratic challenges.
(Manas Dasgupta)
