The Union Cabinet today approved the establishment of 2 lakh dairy-fishery cooperatives and primary agriculture credit societies (PACS) in underserved villages and panchayats over the next five years in an effort to strengthen the cooperative movement in the nation.
Anurag Thakur, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, gave a press conference following a Union Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, noting that 63,000 of the country’s almost 99,000 PACS were operational. According to him, there are still about 2 lakh panchayats without dairy cooperative societies and 1.6 lakh panchayats without PACS. The Cabinet authorised measures to expand the grassroots reach and power of the nation’s cooperative movement.
The ministry added that a number of programmes had been chosen for convergence under
Telangana’s Cotton Output Up By 33% In The Last 6 years the new scheme. These include the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), the Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF), the National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD), and the Dairy Processing & Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) under the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
The Cabinet’s decision, according to the statement, would assist individuals have the necessary forward and backward connections to market their produce, increase their revenue, and get access to credit facilities and other services at the village level.
The development of new PACS, dairy, or fishing cooperative societies would result in job possibilities in rural areas, the government added. Primary cooperative societies that cannot be restored will be designated for winding up and new ones would be founded in their area of operation. The I&B Minister announced the formation of a high-level inter-ministerial committee (IMC) that will be presided over by Minister of Home and Cooperation Amit Shah and include the ministers of Agriculture, Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairy. The panel will also include the relevant secretaries from the ministries.
To ensure targeted and efficient execution of the action plan, committees at the national, state, and district levels had also been planned, the minister continued. The model bylaws of PACS have already been prepared by the Ministry of Cooperation, Thakur said, adding that these had been circulated to all states and UTs on January 5 for their adoption after making the necessary changes to their respective state cooperative Acts. “To increase the viability of PACS and diversify their business activities,” Thakur said. They will be able to carry out more than 25 business activities thanks to these model bylaws, including dairy, fishing, setting up godowns, buying foodgrains, fertiliser, and seeds, selling LPG, CNG, gasoline, and diesel, offering short- and long-term credit, and operating fair price shops, common service centres, custom hiring centres, business correspondent activities, and common service centres.
