Mukesh Agnihotri: Working to strengthen coop sector

Our Correspondent

UNA, November 18

Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri yesterday said that the state’s cooperative sector was being strengthened so that people get direct benefit on their investments and start income generating activities through such grass-roots level societies. He was speaking at the 70th state-level Cooperative Day function at HIMCAPES, a college being run on the cooperative mode at Badheda village in Haroli subdivision.

Land allotted for training institute

Land at Panjawar village has been transferred for the construction of a cooperative training institution in the memory of Mian Heera Singh Thakur

Agnihotri said that Una district was the birthplace of the cooperative movement in the world. He added, “The first cooperative society was constituted at Panjawar village in Haroli subdivision in 1892 under the leadership of Mian Heera Singh Thakur. The society’s objective was to organise local villagers to protect their agricultural land from the fury of floods in the Swan river.”

The Deputy Chief Minister, who also holds the cooperative portfolio, said that a chunk of land had been transferred to the department at Panjawar village for the construction of a cooperative training institution in the memory of Mian Heera Singh Thakur. He added that with the passage of time, people had lost faith in a couple of cooperative societies due to fund misappropriation, but the state government was taking measures to check such illegal activities and restore public confidence to these institutions.

Agnihotri praised cooperative institutions like Kangra Central Cooperative Bank, Jogindra Bank, State Cooperative Bank and Bhuttico Weavers Cooperative for their financial and income generating activities for common people.

He said that HIMCAPES was the state’s first educational institution working on the cooperative mode. The institution runs law and nursing degree courses and its alumni included judges and famous advocates, besides nurses working in government and prestigious private health institutions. Agnihotri honoured the managements of cooperative societies for their functioning.

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