The National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI), the apex organisation of the Indian Cooperative Movement traced back its origin in 1929 when All India Provincial Cooperative Institutes Association came into being with Shri Lallubhai Samal Das Mehta as its first President. Having been reorganized as Indian Cooperative Union, it was renamed later as All India Cooperative Union in 1954 and re-christened as National Cooperative Union of India in 1961.

The NCUI is confederation of cooperatives, and therefore its membership is open to national level, state level sectoral cooperative organisations as well as multi state cooperative societies. The membership is also open to the parastatal cooperative organisations. The membership of the union as on 1st November 2007 stands as 193.

Other National Federations

Apart from the NCUI there other national level federations formed to look after the interests of the various types of the cooperatives in India. They are

1. NAFED National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. Nafed was setup with the object to promote Co-operative marketing of Agricultural Produce to benefit the farmers. Agricultural farmers are the main members of Nafed, who have the authority to say in the form of members of the General Body in the working of Nafed. (www.nafed-india.com)
2. NCCF The National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India Limited:  the NCCF  provide supply and support to the consumer cooperatives and other distributing agencies for distribution of consumer goods at reasonable and affordable rates besides rendering technical guidance and assistance to the consumer cooperatives(nccf-india.com)
3. NAFCUB- National Federation of urban cooperative banks and credit societies: is the apex level promotional body of urban cooperative banks and credit societies in the country (www.nafcub.org)
4. NAFSCOB- The National Federation of State Cooperative Banks Ltd- was organized with a view to facilitate the operations of State and Central Cooperative Banks in general and Development of Cooperative Credit in particular. (http://www.nafscob.org)
5. NCHF- National cooperative Housing federation of India: The National Cooperative Housing Federation of India (NCHF) is the nation wide organization of the Indian Cooperative Housing Movement. (http://www.nchfindia.net)
6. NFCSF- National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Limited- was registered on 1960 as a national level apex organisation of all cooperative sugar factories in India (www.coopsugar.org)