The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved setting up of 2 lakh new Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and dairy-fishery cooperatives in uncovered villages and panchayats over the next five years to strengthen cooperative movement in the country.
At present, there are around 63,000 functional PACS out of nearly 99,000 PACS across the country. There are still 1.6 lakh panchayats without PACS and nearly 2 lakh panchayats without any dairy cooperative society.
The Cabinet approved steps to strengthen the cooperative movement in the country and deepen its reach to the grassroots levels.
The Ministry of Cooperation has formulated a plan to establish viable PACS in each uncovered panchayat, viable dairy cooperatives in each uncovered panchayat/village and viable fishery cooperatives in each coastal panchayat/village as well as panchayat/village having large water bodies, an official statement said.
“Initially, 2 lakh PACS/dairy/fishery cooperatives would be established in the next five years. The action plan for implementation of the project shall be prepared by NABARD, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and National Fishery Development Board (NFDB),” the statement said.
The ministry seeks to strengthen the existing PACS/dairy/fishery cooperatives through the convergence of various schemes of the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying.
The following schemes have been identified for convergence under the current plan: National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD), and Dairy Processing & Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) under the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying; Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), and Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development (FIDF) under the Department of Fisheries.
The Cabinet decision would help in providing farmer members with requisite forward and backward linkages to market their produce, enhance their income, and obtain credit facilities and other services at the village level itself.
Primary cooperative societies that cannot be revived will be identified for winding up, and new ones would be established in their area of operation, the statement said.
The establishment of new PACS/dairy/fishery cooperative societies would generate employment opportunities in rural areas. A high-level Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC), under the chairmanship of Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah, has been constituted.
A national cooperative database is being prepared by the Cooperation ministry where country-wide mapping of cooperatives at Panchayat and village level is being carried out. A database of PACS has been developed in January 2023 and a database of primary dairy/ fishery cooperative societies would be developed by end of February.
