NEW DELHI -The Union Cabinet in India days ago approved strengthening the cooperative movement in the country and deepening its reach up to the grassroots, according to Indian Cooperative.
Indian Cooperative reports that a high-level Inter-Ministerial Committee [IMC] under the chairmanship of Home and Cooperation Minister with Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; Minister for Fishery, Animal Husbandry and Dairying among others, as members has been constituted and empowered to take necessary steps.
Committees at national, state, and district levels have also been constituted to ensure focused and effective execution of the action plan.
The Ministry of Cooperation has formulated a plan to establish viable PACS in each uncovered Panchayat [Assembly], viable dairy cooperatives in each uncovered Panchayat-village and viable fishery cooperatives in each coastal Panchayat-village as well in areas having large water bodies.
The Cabinet also decided to strengthen the existing Primary Agricultural Credit Societies [PACS], dairies, and fishery cooperatives in India through convergence of various schemes of the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying by leveraging the ‘whole-of-Government’ approach. The IMC would prove handy here.
Initially…PACS/ dairy/ fishery cooperatives would be established in the next five years.
PACS are already being modernised with the new model byelaws, which will enable them to undertake more than 25 business activities.
A comprehensive database of PACS was developed in January, 2023 and a database of primary dairy/ fishery cooperative societies would be developed by the end of February. This exercise would provide a list of Panchayats and villages not served by PACS, dairy, and fishery cooperative societies. The national cooperative database and the online central portal would be utilised for real time monitoring of the formation of new cooperative societies.
The cooperative societies in India would be linked with their respective district and state level federations. By leveraging the ‘whole-of-Government’ approach, these societies will be able to set up and modernize necessary infrastructure for diversifying their activities, like milk testing laboratories, bulk milk coolers, milk processing units, construction of biofloc ponds, fish kiosks, development of hatcheries, acquiring deep sea fishing vessels, etc.
Primary dairy cooperative societies, around 1,99,182 in number and having around 1.5 crore members, are engaged in the procurement of milk from the farmers, providing milk testing facilities, cattle feed sale, extension services, among others to the members.
In view of the important role played by these primary level cooperative societies in sustaining the rural economy of the country, it was noted there is a need to make concerted efforts to strengthen the cooperative movement in the country, further deepen its reach up to the grassroots and address their skewed distribution by establishing such societies to cover all panchayats/villages, as the case may be.
This would provide the farmer members all over the country with requisite forward and backward linkages to market their produce, enhance their income, obtain credit facilities and other services at village level itself. Those primary cooperative societies, which cannot be revived, will be identified for winding up, and new primary cooperative societies would be established in their area of operation.
Further, establishing new PACS/dairy/fishery cooperative societies would generate employment opportunities in rural areas, which would have a multiplier effect on the rural economy. The plan would also enable farmers to realize better prices for their products, expand the size of their markets and weave them seamlessly into the supply chain.
https://thecooperator.news/2023-union-budget-of-india-ncui-president-sees-surge-in-co-op-fund/
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