Co-operative banks are registered under the Cooperative Societies Act and regulated by the RBI. These banks play an important role in rural financing.
Primary Agricultural Cooperative Society (PACS), are organized at village-level and can be started with 10 or more persons, belonging to a village. They act as a bridge between the rural borrowers and higher agencies like NABARD/RBI.
Adequate financing is essential for the development and timely implementation of agriculture and allied sector, thus PACS are playing a very important role, by facilitating the flow of credit to ultimate borrowers.
Constitution of three member committee
CM Jai Ram Thakur said that the State Government is planning to constitute a three members committee of Cabinet Ministers to look into the amendments in the H.P. Cooperative Societies Act, 1968 to make them more viable and practical keeping in view the present scenario.
Himachal Pradesh takes the Lead
While presiding over a meeting of Cooperation Department, Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Jairam Thakur ji said that the government may think of promoting PACS as multipurpose service centres in collaboration with NABARD, so as to provide multifarious services to farmers under one roof.
He further added that, cooperative movement should be expanded up to grass root level to spread it’s reach among rural population.
At present, 4,843 cooperative societies are functioning in the state with total membership of around 17.35 lakh. Out of this around 2,132 are PACSs, with total membership of 12.56 lakhs. Recently, INR 12.40 crore has been sanctioned for 164 cooperative societies for business development.
CM added that, under Integrated Cooperative Development Project (ICDP), two projects of INR 73.15 crore and INR 89.58 crore are being executed at Solan and Mandi districts, respectively.
