India’s First National Cooperative University

Published on 10 Oct 2025

• The Parliament passed the Tribhuvan Sahkari University Bill, 2025 to establish the country’s first national cooperative university.

• The law will convert the Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat (IRMA), currently a registered society, as the “Tribhuvan” Sahkari University.  

• The headquarters will be Anand, Gujarat.

• It aims to revolutionise education, research and training in the cooperative sector.

• The University is named after Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel (1903-1990), an Indian independence activist, lawyer, and politician who is regarded as the father of the cooperative movement in India.

• He founded the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union in 1946, and the Anand Co-operative movement. 

• TSU will be an institute of national importance and will impart technical and management education and research in the cooperative sector and attain the mission of “Sahakar se Samriddhi”..

• IRMA will become one of the schools of the university.

Keywords:

India’s First National Cooperative University cooperative university Institute of Rural Management Anand Gujarat IRMA cooperative sector