India's first national cooperative university to end nepotism in sector, training vacuum: Shah

Anand | Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said India's upcoming first national university for the cooperative sector in Gujarat will work to end nepotism as only trained persons will get jobs in this sector in the future.

Shah was addressing a gathering at the campus of Anand Agriculture University after laying the foundation stone of Tribhuvan Sahkari University (TSU) on the premises of the adjoining Water and Land Management Institute.

The university has been named after the late Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel, one of the pioneers of the cooperative movement in India who was instrumental in laying the foundation of Amul.

TSU will be built on a 125-acre plot at a cost of Rs 500 crore.

"The upcoming university will work to address the allegations of nepotism in this sector. Unlike the past, when people were first hired and then trained, only trained people will get jobs in this sector in the future," he said.

Shah said the university will also address the existing "weaknesses" of this sector and fill the training gaps in the domain that engages every fourth person of the country, or say about 30 crore people.

He said the cooperatives sector in India has no dearth of talent and what the country requires now is a manpower of trained soldiers, experts and officials.

TSU will fill this "mega vacuum", he added.

Shah also sought to address concerns in some quarters about the upcoming university not being named after Dr Verghese Kurien, the father of the White Revolution, saying his role in the cooperatives sector can never be denied.

"Patel sahab (Tribhuvan Patel) enlightened and nurtured the cooperative movement... it was his vision that the sector is standing strong today," he said.

Congress leaders who raised such questions do not know that Patel was from their party. The BJP did not even exist then, the minister said.