2 min readNew DellhiJul 6, 2026 03:08 PM IST
Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah announced on Monday that the central government would soon launch a cooperative life insurance company and a utility aggregator cooperative on the lines of Bharat Taxi, India’s first cooperative-based taxi service.
“We are set to develop a utility aggregator cooperative on the lines of Bharat Taxi in the near future. Building on the success of the IFFCO-Tokio insurance model, we are also going to establish a cooperative life insurance company, which will significantly advance the cooperative sector in the insurance domain,” Shah said at an event organised on the occasion of the fifth foundation day ceremony of the Ministry of Cooperation.
Shah said that cooperatives contribute about 20 per cent of farm credit, 35 per cent of fertiliser distribution, 21 per cent of sugar production, and 35 per cent of milk production today.
Shah also said that Bharat Taxi, launched on February 5 this year, would be available in every state and 500 cities in the next two years.
Before the cooperation ministry was formed in 2021, a division of the Ministry of Agriculture handled cooperatives.
‘No complaint of interference’
Shah said the biggest controversy five years ago was about whether the new ministry would lead to central interference in the functioning of state cooperatives, because cooperation is a state subject under the Constitution.
“I want to reply to them that five years have passed, and not even the Opposition-ruled states have made any complaint of interference in cooperatives by the Centre,” Shah said.
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Cooperation had been part of the agriculture ministry since 1979. When the government established the cooperation ministry on July 6, 2021, it assigned the portfolio to Shah, who is also the Union home minister.
Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying and Panchayati Raj; Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma; Krishan Pal Gurjar, Minister of State for Cooperation; and Murlidhar Mohol, Minister of State for Cooperation and Civil Aviation; and senior central and state officials were also present on the occasion.
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