AHMEDABAD: Although Gujarat figures among India’s strongest cooperative states, fresh data placed before the Rajya Sabha reveals that its celebrated cooperative movement is battling an internal crisis.
While Gujarat has one of the country’s largest cooperative networks, thousands of societies have either stopped functioning or slipped into financial distress, raising questions over long-term sustainability.
According to the Ministry of Cooperation, Gujarat has 88,119 registered cooperative societies, making it the second-largest cooperative ecosystem in India after Maharashtra’s 2.27 lakh societies. Gujarat alone accounts for over 10% of all cooperative societies in the country, underlining its strategic importance in India’s cooperative economy.
However, the headline figures conceal significant structural weaknesses.
Out of 88,119 registered societies, 79,823 are functional, but 6,959 have become non-functional, while another 1,341 are under liquidation. In other words, 8,300 cooperative societies in Gujarat are effectively inactive or on the verge of closure, representing nearly one in every ten registered societies in the state.
The financial health of the functioning societies paints another mixed picture. Among the 79,823 operational cooperatives, 56,977 are profit-making, indicating that nearly 71% of active societies remain financially viable. But 18,404 societies are operating at a loss, accounting for almost 23% of all functional cooperatives. Financial information is unavailable for another 4,442 societies, making it difficult to assess the true financial health of the sector.
Data suggests that while Gujarat has succeeded in expanding the cooperative network, financial sustainability remains uneven across the sector. Across India, there are 8.53 lakh cooperative societies, of which 6.63 lakh are functional, 1.41 lakh are non-functional, and 49,177 are under liquidation. Among functioning societies, 3.56 lakh are profit-making, 2.50 lakh are loss-making, while financial data is unavailable for 56,689 societies.
Although Gujarat performs better than several states in terms of the proportion of operational societies, the existence of thousands of dormant cooperatives indicates persistent governance, management and financial challenges.