GURGAON, Feb 28: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today inaugurated the National Cooperative Development Corporation’s (NCDC) training centre, named after the late Lakshmanrao Inamdar, a Sangh leader and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mentor.
Inamdar, popularly known as Vakil Saheb, was a founding father of the RSS-affiliated Sehkar Bharti, which works for the development of cooperatives in the country.
The centre has now been upgraded as a national level institute and renamed Laxmanrao Inamdar Academy for Cooperative Studies and Human Resource Management.
“I have myself worked with Inamdar. For many years, he was in charge of the Sangh’s activities in Gujarat and had inducted our Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the organisation and was his mentor also,” Bhagwat said at an event here to inaugurate the centre.
Modi has written about Inamdar in his book “Jyoti Punj”, he said.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohal Lal Khattar also recalled Inamdar’s contribution and said he was the one who brought Modi into the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and guided his development.
Discussing the cooperative movement in the country, Bhagwat said the modern model of cooperatives may have come from abroad but the concept was always there.
Cooperation and cooperativeness are qualities which are inculcated in Sangh workers, he added.
“Bina sehkar nahi udhar, bina sanskar nahi sehkar (Without cooperation there cannot be any progress and without moral values there cannot be any cooperation),” he said.
The event was also attended by Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
NCDC is a state-run organisation which works for development of the cooperatives in the country and provides them loans at reduced interest rates. (PTI)