The World Cooperative Monitor 2025 evaluated the world’s largest 300 cooperatives and mutuals. With a combined turnover of approximately $2.8 trillion in 2023, these cooperatives ensured livelihoods and employment security to about 280 million people. The report highlighted the inclusivity and resilience of cooperatives in effectively addressing development challenges. Of the total turnover, agriculture/food industries accounted for 35.7 per cent, insurance 31.7 per cent and wholesale/retail trade 18 per cent. Such a vast spread of cooperative activities has reaffirmed that cooperatives are not peripheral institutions but globally competitive enterprises driving productivity and inclusive growth.
In India, collective efforts of 3.6 million dairy farmer members of ‘Amul’, managed by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, reported a turnover of ₹90,000 crore in 2025, achieved through 18,700 village level primary dairy cooperatives and 18 district level milk producing unions. Through a network of 36,000 member cooperatives with 55 million farmer members, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (Iffco), a fertiliser cooperative is now a global leader in nano-fertiliser technology. It has registered a turnover of ₹45,468 crore in 2025-26.
Building quality economic institution
The establishment of the Ministry of Cooperation on July 6, 2021, marked a historic turning point, driving unprecedented institutional emphasis on India’s cooperative ecosystem. The ministry’s reform trajectory was evident from the outset. On September 25, 2021, the Union Cooperation Minister unveiled a bold agenda to reboot India’s cooperative movement by promising a National Cooperation Policy, a unified cooperative database, a national cooperative university, revitalised PACS (Primary Agricultural Credit Society) and coordinated reforms spanning the entire cooperative ecosystem — from grassroots societies to apex institutions.
The most significant contribution of the Ministry of Cooperation has been institutional. The ministry’s first five years have been devoted to building the institutional architecture of a modern cooperative economy through legislative reforms, digitalisation, PACS computerisation, banking reforms, business diversification, the National Cooperative Database, Cooperative Ranking Framework, National Cooperation Policy, Tribhuvan Sahkari University, and strengthened capacity building.
Together, these reforms have transformed fragmented interventions into a coherent national strategy for a resilient, technology-enabled and enterprise-driven cooperative sector. Whether India can realise the full economic potential of cooperatives will now depend less on new schemes and more on scaling these reforms into productive enterprises that compete, innovate and
Further, the ministry has restored the cooperative movement to the centre of India’s development agenda. Through sustained policy support and institutional reforms, it has strengthened the ecosystem for community-owned enterprises and reinforced the role of cooperatives in promoting inclusive, democratic and grassroots development. The National Cooperation Policy, 2025, provides the strategic framework to build on these gains and positions cooperatives as important partners in advancing the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047.
Cooperative movement 2.0: Strategic pathways
Cooperatives have tremendous empowering effect. More than 291.2 million members are associated with varied collective occupations like agriculture and allied, agro-processing/industrial, etc., credit and thrift, dairy, fishery, handicrafts and handlooms, jute and coir, labour, livestock, marketing, sugar, tourism, etc. These entities, if guided and facilitated appropriately, can support grassroot level member-driven collectives and enhance self-reliance, especially, amongst artisans, farmers and micro and small entrepreneurs in realising the dream of Viksit Bharat.
The next phase of cooperative reforms must be driven by outcomes. A National Cooperative 2.0 Mission could set measurable targets for employment, member incomes, exports, women’s participation, youth leadership and contribution to GDP, while introducing a robust performance framework that evaluates cooperatives on governance, innovation, financial sustainability and business growth. The emphasis should shift from counting cooperatives to building competitive, robust and future-ready institutions.
A separate platform may be needed for raising funds by introducing new financial instruments and by broad-basing the stakeholder base to meet long-term capital needs of cooperatives. Further, innovative funding systems could be established to support, mentor, and provide shared infrastructure to cooperative start-ups.
Realising this vision demands a new ecosystem of leadership, innovation and global engagement. Professional management, competency-based career pathways and continuous capacity building should become integral to the cooperative movement, with Tribhuvan Sahkari University evolving into a national hub for research, innovation and policy support. At the same time, cooperatives must diversify into sunrise sectors, embrace digital technologies, strengthen governance and position themselves in global value chains through branding, exports and strategic partnerships. India’s most successful cooperatives can serve as innovation laboratories, demonstrating how community ownership and global competitiveness can reinforce each other. While India’s cooperative renaissance has begun with the tireless efforts of the Ministry of Cooperation, sustained reforms and timely execution of corrective measures can transform cooperative sector into a trillion-dollar force for inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
S Mahendra Dev is the Chairman and K K Tripathy is the Joint Secretary of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister
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