Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that migration is the biggest challenge facing the state, and cooperatives have a significant role to play in preventing it. The Chief Minister made this statement while inaugurating the Cooperative Fair organized at Rangers Ground to commemorate the International Year of Cooperatives 2025 and the Silver Jubilee of the formation of Uttarakhand state.
The Chief Minister said that the Cooperative Fair is not just a display of products, but a powerful symbol of Uttarakhand’s cooperative strength, rural self-reliance, and self-respect. In today’s competitive era, the role of cooperatives has become even more crucial, and keeping this in mind, the United Nations has declared 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives. The Chief Minister said that Uttarakhand has become a leading state in the country in cooperative reforms. The computerization of multi-purpose cooperative societies started in Uttarakhand, and today all 670 cooperative societies in the state are completely digital. While farmers previously had to make rounds of offices, today they are accessing all services through their mobile phones. This is the difference between the Congress’s theoretical model and the BJP’s practical, ground-level model.
Cooperative Societies are no longer limited to providing loans
The Chief Minister said that cooperative societies are no longer limited to providing loans, but are also providing affordable medicines through Jan Aushadhi Kendras (generic medicine centers), and insurance, pension, electricity bill payment, Aadhaar, and digital services through Common Service Centers. Institutions that were once considered a burden have now become service centers for the public. The thousands of crores of rupees deposited in cooperative banks today are proof of the increasing public trust. The Chief Minister said that the Congress only gave slogans to women, while the BJP government has given them opportunities.
Government to provide loans up to one lakh rupees to women without a guarantor: Dhan Singh
Cooperative Minister Dr. Dhan Singh Rawat said that the government will provide loans ranging from Rs. 21,000 to Rs. 1 lakh to single women and women in self-help groups without a guarantor from the new year. Women will be given loans up to Rs. 2 lakh at low-interest rates for pilgrimage. Women running vegetable stalls or engaged in other self-employment activities will be given loans for one to three days at an interest rate of half or one percent
