Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct.21: With a financial commitment of roughly Rs 2,000-3000 crore over the next five years, the Union Cooperation Ministry is working on a new government initiative to modernise and digitalize around 97,000 primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACs) across the country.
Primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACs) are village-level lending institutions founded on cooperative principles. They are also known as agri-cooperative credit societies. They offer short and medium-term loans to rural residents to help them meet their financial obligations.
There are approximately 97,961 PACs in the country, with approximately 65,000 of them being operational.
“We are working on a central scheme to computerise PACs. The aim is to ensure seamless connectivity of panchayat level PACs till headquarters,” said a senior Cooperation Ministry official.
Banking procedures will become more efficient and audits will benefit from the digitization of PACs. Furthermore, because agri-credit is still disbursed through PACs in a few states, it will ensure that the advantage of farm loans reaches the last mile, he said.
The official described computerization as a “futuristic concept” that will allow PACs to create new vocations such as setting up godowns.
Because PACs are under the purview of the state government, the programme will be implemented on a 60:40 basis for a period of five years, he said, adding that the overall budget will be in the range of Rs 2,000-3,000 crore.
The government has proposed computerising PACs in 2017, with a budget investment of Rs 1950 crore. However, it was unable to clear the cabinet.
When the Cooperation Department was part of the Union Agriculture Ministry, there was only one scheme in place: the Integrated Scheme of Agriculture Cooperation (ISAC), which provided subsidies to PACs for capital infrastructure upgrades.
In July of this year, a new Ministry of Cooperation was established to strengthen the cooperative movement. It is developing a new cooperation policy as well as certain central plans.
The official said that the Department of Personnel and Training (DOP) has already created and sanctioned 168 posts for the new ministry.
