A comprehensive stakeholder consultation on the theme “Development of Cooperative Sector: Empowering Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) for Self-Sufficiency” was held today in New Delhi, bringing together key players from various sectors to discuss strengthening of cooperative societies in the country. The Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation, Dr Ashish Kumar Bhutani was present as chairman of the day-long stakeholders consultation sessions. Stakeholders from all across the country including Chairpersons and MDs of various National Federations including National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) were present while more than 200 other stakeholders from across the country participated virtually.
Speaking on the occasion, Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation, Dr Ashish Kumar Bhutani said that in accordance with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s visionof ‘Sahkar Se Samriddhi’, the Ministry will complete the digitization process of all PACS in the country by the end of this year or January 2025. He added that the focus on creating 2 Lakh new multi-purpose PACS is with the vision to cover more and more uncovered and under covered areas of the country.
Under the guidance of Union Home Minister and Minister of CooperationShri Amit Shah, Ministry of Cooperation envisages to establish viable cooperatives in every Panchayat with a focus to develop 2 Lakh new PACS as dairy, and fishery cooperatives within next five years.
Union Cooperation Secretary Dr. Bhutani said that the Ministry is geared up to procure maize at Minimum Support Price (MSP) as promised by Union Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah. He urged all maize farmers to register themselves on Farmers’ portal for procurement by National Cooperative Consumer Federation (NCCF) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) under Ethanol Blending Program. He added that this will be beneficial for both farmers and Ethanol Blending Program. Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah recently announced the revised targets of 20 per cent Ethanol blending in petroleum and diesel and curtailed its earlier timeline for achieving it from 2030 to 2025-26.
The consultation on digitization of PACS focused on bringing all the functional PACS onto anEnterprise Resource Planning(ERP)basedcommon national software, linking them with NABARD through State Cooperative Banks and District Central Cooperative Banks. So far, proposals to computerize 67,930 PACS from 30 States/ UTs have been sanctioned under the Project and Central share amounting to₹654.23 Crore has been released to the States/UTs for procurement of hardware, digitization of legacy data and establishing support system. ₹141 Crore has also been released to NABARD under the project. As on 30th August 2024, a total of 31,301 PACS across 29 States/ UTs have been onboarded on the ERP Software and 21,477 PACS have gone live. 54,654 PACS have received hardware for digitization.
In order to make PACS into viable business entities, model bye laws were framed to make the work as multipurpose entities undertaking economic activities in various fields ranging from agriculture and allied activities to distribution of petroleum products, fertilizers and seeds. Under the leadership of Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah, steps have been taken to further strengthen PACS by incentivizing farmers to produce maize and pulses. It has been decided to procure the full produce of pre-registered farmers producing maize and pulses, at minimum support prices.
The consultation concluded with a consensus on the need for continued collaboration among stakeholders to ensure the successful implementation of the discussed strategies. There was a strong commitment to empowering PACS, enhancing their capabilities, and supporting them in becoming self-sufficiententities that can significantly contribute to the nation’sagricultural and economic development.
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