The Evolution of Co-operative Training and Education in India: A Century’s Perspective

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India’s cooperative movement has always been only as strong as the people running it. And for much of the early 20th century, that was precisely the problem – there weren’t enough trained, informed, or committed personnel to sustain the growth of cooperatives at the ground level. Addressing this gap took nearly a century of deliberate institutional building, committee recommendations, and policy evolution. The story of cooperative training and education in India is, in many ways, the story of the movement itself learning to walk, and then run.

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The cooperative movement in India gained its first legislative footing with the Cooperative Credit Societies Act of 1904, which created a legal framework for rural credit societies. Within a decade, it was clear that legislation alone could not sustain the movement. Mismanagement, poor oversight, and a lack of cooperative awareness among members were pulling the movement backward even as it expanded on paper.

The trigger for serious attention to training came with the Maclagan Committee, appointed in October 1914 under Sir Edward Maclagan to study the state of cooperatives after the First World War disrupted agricultural credit flows. The Committee’s report placed considerable emphasis on ensuring the cooperative character of institutions and training and member education, including the training of the Registrar and his staff. This was one of the earliest formal acknowledgments that cooperative progress depended not just on laws or capital, but on educated leadership and trained personnel.

The Committee also recommended a strong three-tier structure – primary societies at the base, central cooperative banks at the district level, and provincial banks at the apex – a structure that would only function well if the people managing it understood cooperative principles. Without training, even the best-designed structure would collapse under the weight of inexperience and ignorance.

The interwar period: building awareness, not yet institutions

Between the Maclagan Committee report (1915) and Independence (1947), cooperative training remained largely informal and fragmented. State cooperative unions and institutes took on the responsibility of educating members and office-bearers, but there was no central coordination. The difficulties faced by marketing and non-credit cooperatives during this period were directly linked to the inexperience of their office bearers, which brought renewed focus on strengthening cooperative education and training infrastructure.

A notable institutional milestone in this phase was the establishment of the All India Association of Cooperative Institutes in 1929 – the first coordinated effort to bring cooperative training bodies under a common umbrella. While it was not a national training authority by any measure, it signalled growing awareness that training had to be organized, not left to chance.

Post-Independence urgency: the Gorwala Committee and the First Five Year Plan

After Independence, the Planning Commission gave cooperatives a central role in economic development. The First Five Year Plan (1951-56) explicitly provided for the diffusion of knowledge through cooperative training and education, and recommended that every government department follow the policy of building up cooperatives. This was a significant policy signal – training was no longer an afterthought; it was part of the plan itself.

The All India Rural Credit Survey Committee (1951), commonly called the Gorwala Committee, submitted its landmark report in 1954. It found that cooperatives covered a very small share of rural credit needs and observed critical weaknesses in membership engagement and staff competence. Among its key recommendations was the establishment of specialized cooperative training institutions – a call that the government could no longer ignore.

The CCCT: formalizing cooperative training in 1953

Even before the Gorwala Committee’s report was formally submitted, the Government of India moved to act. In 1953, the Central Committee for Cooperative Training (CCCT) was constituted jointly by the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India. Its mandate was clear: formulate plans for organizing and directing training of personnel employed – or to be employed – in cooperative departments and institutions across the country.

This was a decisive turning point. For the first time, cooperative training had a dedicated national-level body with a specific mandate. The CCCT represented the government’s acknowledgment that building cooperative competency was a state responsibility, not something that could be delegated entirely to voluntary bodies or left to individual states to manage in isolation.

The NCUI takes charge: 1962 and the shift towards cooperative self-management

In 1962, a significant institutional transition took place. The Government of India approved a new arrangement in which the work relating to cooperative training was entrusted to the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI), and a new body called the Committee for Cooperative Training (CCT) replaced the CCCT. This shift was philosophically important: it moved the primary responsibility for cooperative training from a government-dominated body to the apex body of the cooperative sector itself.

This was consistent with the broader cooperative principle of autonomy and self-governance. If cooperatives were meant to be self-reliant institutions, it followed that the training of their personnel should also be managed by the cooperative sector – not administered top-down by the government. The NCUI, as the national federation of cooperative unions and federations, was the natural home for this responsibility.

NCCT: the apex training authority since 1976

The next major evolution came in July 1976, when the Committee for Cooperative Training was replaced by the National Council for Cooperative Training (NCCT), formally constituted under bye-law 16A of NCUI with its headquarters in New Delhi. The NCCT became the apex body responsible for organizing, directing, monitoring, and evaluating cooperative training across the country.

The NCCT’s membership reflected its character as a cooperative-government partnership: it included representatives of the Government of India, the Reserve Bank of India, NCUI, and national and state-level cooperative federations. The President of NCUI serves as Chairman of NCCT, and the Chief Executive of NCUI acts as Director General. This dual accountability – to both the cooperative sector and the government – kept the body both autonomous and aligned with national priorities.

The NCCT’s training structure

Over the decades, NCCT built an extensive training infrastructure across the country. At the apex sits the Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM) in Pune, set up in 1967, which offers advanced management education for cooperative professionals. Below it are five Regional Institutes of Cooperative Management (RICMs) located at Chandigarh, Bangalore, Kalyani, Gandhinagar, and Patna. At the ground level, 14 Institutes of Cooperative Management (ICMs) operate across major cities including Bhopal, Chennai, Dehradun, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, and others – ensuring geographic reach and accessibility.

All RICMs and ICMs under NCCT are accredited with the Centre for Professional Excellence in Cooperatives (C-PEC) of NABARD’s Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), ensuring standardized quality in cooperative training delivery across the country.

In 2018, in accordance with a Central Government decision, NCCT became an autonomous society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 – further consolidating its independent institutional identity.

NCUI’s education wing: the NCCE and its role

While NCCT focused on training cooperative personnel, the NCUI simultaneously developed a parallel arm for cooperative education – a distinction that matters. Training typically addresses skill-building for those already within the sector; education reaches wider audiences, including students, members, and the general public.

In 1956, a centre was started in New Delhi as a subsidiary to NCUI for providing education and training to trainers and teachers of cooperation. This centre evolved and was formally established in 1958 as the All India Cooperative Instructors Training Centre. Its original function was to impart pedagogical and capacity building training to the trainers who were conducting member education programmes for village cooperative societies.

As its scope grew well beyond training instructors, NCUI’s Governing Council renamed it the National Centre for Cooperative Education (NCCE). Today, NCCE organises cooperative education programmes for all sections, runs a Diploma Programme in Cooperative Education and Development (which has gained international recognition), conducts Leadership Development Programmes for chairpersons and directors of cooperatives, and offers refresher courses for university and college faculty. In one financial year alone (2017-18), the NCCE conducted 165 training programmes, benefiting nearly 5,500 participants against a target of 2,250 – an achievement of 244% of its set target.

The NCUI has also signed an MOU with Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan to popularise cooperative education in schools, and has started the Diploma Programme in Cooperation at universities such as Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila University and Mahendra Garh University – extending the reach of cooperative education to formal academic channels.

The separation of education and training: the Swaminathan Committee’s contribution

For a long time, cooperative education and training programmes were jointly undertaken without clear demarcation. It was the Swaminathan Committee that recommended separating the two – education (broadly awareness and values-based) from training (skills and professional competency). As a result of this recommendation, separate programmes were formulated for each, though both continued to be guided and coordinated by the NCUI. This separation was important because it allowed each function to develop its own curriculum, pedagogy, and target audience more effectively.

Where things stand today

The formation of the Ministry of Cooperation in July 2021 brought renewed government focus to the cooperative sector, including its training and education infrastructure. NCCT now falls under the ambit of this Ministry, and both NCCT and NCUI’s education programmes are listed as priority areas for cooperative capacity building at the national level.

From the Maclagan Committee’s early warnings in 1914, to the CCCT’s formation in 1953, to NCCT’s establishment in 1976, and the NCCE’s growing international footprint – India’s cooperative training journey reflects a gradual but deliberate shift from government-run initiatives to self-governed, sector-led institutions. The cooperative movement in India recognized, often painfully, that no amount of legislation or capital could substitute for competent, informed, and principled people at every level of the cooperative structure.

What do you think? Given that the cooperative sector has moved towards greater institutional autonomy in training and education, should formal cooperative studies be made a compulsory module in undergraduate commerce and economics curricula? And with digital learning now reshaping professional education – is India’s cooperative training infrastructure doing enough to reach young, rural members who may never walk into an institute in Pune or Chandigarh?

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References
  1. https://www.cooperation.gov.in/sites/default/files/2022-12/History_of_cooperatives_Movement.pdf
  2. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=153419&ModuleId=3
  3. https://www.cooperation.gov.in/ncct
  4. https://icmdehradun.com/about-ncct/
  5. https://ncui.coop/introduction-objective
  6. https://www.ncui.coop/about-ncui
  7. https://www.cooperation.gov.in/cooperative-trainings
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Co-operation – Genesis, Principles, Values, Growth and Development

1 Genesis of Co-operative Movement in India and Few Selected Countries

  1. Characteristics of Co-operative Enterprise
  2. Objectives of Co-operation
  3. Origin and Development of Co-operative Movement in India
  4. History of the Co-operative Movement in India up to 1947
  5. England (Consumer Co-operative Movement)
  6. Germany (Raiffeisen and Schulze)
  7. Dairy Co-operatives in Denmark
  8. Co-operatives in Israel (Collective Farming)
  9. New Age Co-operatives

2 Development of Co-operative Principles and Values including ICA Restated Principles, 1995

  1. International Co-operative Alliance (ICA)
  2. Rochdale Principles
  3. ICA Statement on Co-operative Identity – 1995
  4. Principles of 1995 Co-operative Statement
  5. Co-operative Values

3 Co-operative Autonomy, Distinctive Features of Democratice Management in Co-operatives vis-a-vis Companies

  1. Nature of Co-operatives
  2. Principles of Co-operatives
  3. Democratic Member Control as a Restated Principle (1995)
  4. Features of a Co-operative
  5. Comparison between a Co-operative and Company

4 Co-operative Policy and Support at Centre and States (After 1990)

  1. Model Co-operative Law
  2. Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided Co-operative Societies Act 1995
  3. Enactment of Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act 2002
  4. National Co-operative Policy 2002
  5. Vaidyanathan Committee Recommendations

5 Phase-I 1st to 3rd Five Year Plan

  1. First Five Year Plan (1951-1956)
  2. Second Five Year Plan (1956-1961)
  3. Third Five Year Plan (1961-1966)

6 Phase-II 4th to 8th Five Year Plan

  1. Introduction
  2. Fourth Five Year Plan (1969-1974)
  3. Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-1979)
  4. Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-1985)
  5. Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-1990)
  6. Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-1997)

7 Phase-III 9th to 11th Five Year Plan

  1. Ninth Five Year Plan (1997-2002)
  2. Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007)
  3. Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-2012)

8 Present Status of Co-Operative Movement

  1. Spread of Co-operatives
  2. Share of Co-operatives in National Economy
  3. Significance of Co-operative Movement
  4. Important Sectors of Co-operative Movement
  5. Problems of Co-operative Movement
  6. Issues/Challenges before Co-operative Movement

9 Types of Co-Operatives

  1. Co-operative Marketing
  2. Co-operative Processing
  3. Co-operative Farming
  4. Consumer Co-operative
  5. Industrial Co-operatives
  6. Housing Co-operatives
  7. Dairy Co-operative
  8. Fishery Co-operatives
  9. Transport Co-operatives
  10. Education Societies
  11. Labour Co-operatives
  12. Hospital Co-operatives
  13. Agri-tourism Co-operatives

10 Study of Co-Operative Credit Institutions

  1. Origin
  2. Co-operative Rural Credit Institutions in India
  3. Credit Co-operative Movement after Independence
  4. Long Term Credit
  5. Co-operative Rural Credit Institutions – Issues
  6. Non-Agricultural Co-operative Credit Institutions

11 Study of Marketing, Consumer, Processing Co-Operatives

  1. Marketing Co-operative
  2. Consumer Co-operative
  3. Sugar Co-operative
  4. Dairy Co-operative

12 Study of Co-Operatives for Weaker Section– Labour, Tribal, Fishery, Weavers, Women

  1. Importance of Weaker Section Co-operatives
  2. Different Weaker Section Co-operatives
  3. Fishery Co-operatives
  4. Tribal Co-operatives
  5. Labour Co-operatives
  6. Weavers’ Co-operatives
  7. Women Co-operatives

13 Study of Other Types of Co-Operatives- Housing, Fertilizer

  1. Housing Co-operatives
  2. Fertilizer Co-operatives
  3. Health Co-operatives
  4. Tourism Co-operatives
  5. Tree Growers’ Co-operative Societies

14 Findings and Recommendations of Important Committees (1954- 1989)

  1. All India Rural Credit Survey Committee Report – 1954
  2. Committee on Co-operation – 1965
  3. All India Rural Credit Review Committee (AIRCRC) – 1969
  4. Madhava Das Committee – 1978
  5. Report of the Committee on Co-operative Law for Democratisation and Professionalisation of Management in Co-operatives – 1987
  6. Report of the Agricultural Credit Review Committee – 1989

15 Findings and Recommendations of Important Committees (1991- 2010)

  1. Report of the Committee on Model Co-operative Act – 1991
  2. Report of the Committee on Licensing of New Urban Co-operative Banks
  3. Report of the Task Force on Revival of Rural Co-operative Credit Institutions (2005)
  4. Report of the High Powered Committee on Co-operatives (2009)

16 Role of Regulatory and Development Institutions for Co-operative Movement

  1. Role Functions of Reserve Bank of India
  2. Role Functions of NABARD
  3. Role Functions of NCDC
  4. Role Functions of NDDB
  5. Promotional Role of Registrar of Co-operative Societies in Co-operative Development

17 Co-Operative Training and Education

  1. Evolution of Co-operative Training and Education
  2. Structure of Co-operative Training and Education under NCUI
  3. Co-operative Training and Education Facilities in Junior Training Centres in States
  4. Co-operative Training and Education provided by other Co-operative Organizations