Terming cooperatives as one of the strongest pillars of Indian agriculture, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar today said he has asked Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to consider income tax exemption to Indian cooperatives. “I have written a letter to the Finance Minister to look into the issue of I-T exemption to cooperative societies,” Pawar said at a national level meeting with the state cooperative ministers here.
With about six lakh cooperative societies covering about 250 million members, Pawar said the Indian cooperative sector takes pride in calling itself one of the largest cooperative movement in the world.
National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI), the apex organisation of the cooperatives in the country, has been demanding to keep cooperative societies out of the purview of the direct tax code that is to be operationalised in 2012.
