NEW DELHI: The
Institute of Rural Management Anand
(IRMA) in Gujarat will be established as a specialised
national cooperative university
, the first of its kind in the country. On Monday, the government introduced the ‘Tribhuvan Sahkari University Bill, 2025’ in Lok Sabha to facilitate this development.
Named after eminent cooperative leader of Gujarat,
Tribhuvandas Patel
, the university will focus on producing skilled professionals for various technical, managerial, administrative, supervisory and operational jobs in the sector. Patel was the founder of
Amul dairy
in Anand.
Once the Bill becomes an Act, IRMA will be one of the schools of the university and will also be declared as a
Centre of Excellence for rural management
.
The Bill, introduced by the minister of state for cooperation Krishan Pal Gurjar, seeks to establish the university to impart and promote
cooperative education
, training and R&D for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country.
The university will establish sector-specific schools such as dairy, fishery, sugar, banking, rural credit, multi-state cooperatives, and cooperative finance, marketing, laws, accounting and audit in its campus in Anand or in the states that are the leaders in the respective sectors.
“The university will also create a pan-India network of affiliated cooperative education and training institutes to achieve its objectives,” said the Bill’s statement of objects and reasons.
It noted that a national university exclusively for the cooperatives was proposed as the existing education and training infrastructure in the sector is “fragmented and grossly inadequate to meet the present and future demand for qualified manpower” in cooperative societies.
A person of eminence will be appointed by the central government as a chancellor of the university which will also collaborate with other universities, colleges, institutes or cooperative societies for R&D in the field of cooperation.
