You are at right place, but came very late, Amit Shah tells Ajit Pawar

Mumbai: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday told Deputy Chief Minister and president of his own faction of the Nationalist Congress Party, Ajit Pawar, that he was in the right place but added that he took 'too long' to join the government with the BJP.

"Today is the first time that Ajit Pawar and myself are sharing a dais. I would like to tell Ajit Pawar that after a long time you are sitting in the right place. This was the right place (for you) but you have taken too long to come," Shah said.

Shah, who also holds the Cooperative department portfolio, was in Pune on Sunday to launch the portal of the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS) in Pune. He said co-operatives need transparency and need to modernise. The cooperative movement cannot go ahead without 'responsibility and accountability', he said.


"The Election Commission will create a body to hold elections so that, unlike earlier elections for co-operative bodies where irregularities used to happen, these will not happen anymore," he said. Shah said that the move may not be liked by many but it was necessary to "increase the credibility" of the co-operative sector.

Among other measures being taken to increase transparency, Shah said that they have fixed accountability of the board of directors and other employees. Those running co-operative societies cannot employ their relatives in these bodies. "Every appointment will now be done on merit," Shah said. He added that they have brought the co-operatives under RTI and have also decided to have a concurrent audit to increase transparency.

He said that Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) will now become a common service centre and provide all kinds of services to people. "If you want a birth registration, death registration, voter ID verification, there would be more than 300 to 400 state and central schemes available. There would be PACS bank mitra, PACS drug stores where cheaper drugs would be available, gas distribution, PACS petrol pumps,"said Shah.

He said that in the next five years, the government aims to create 3 lakh new PACS.