Amit Shah Inaugurates National Conference of Rural Cooperative Banks

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will open a one-day National Conference of Rural Cooperative Banks on Friday, which is being organized by the Ministry of Cooperation and the National Federation of State Cooperative Banks (NAFSCOB).

Union Minister of State for Cooperation BL Verma will deliver the conference's closing remarks. Gyanesh Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation, Konduru Ravinder Rao, Chairman of NAFSCOB, and Bhima Subrahmanyam, Managing Director of NAFSCOB, will also be present.

According to an official release, India's short-term cooperative credit structure consists of 34 State Cooperative Banks, 351 District Central Cooperative Banks, and 96,575 PACS.

On May 19, 1964, the National Federation of State Cooperative Banks was founded with the broad goal of facilitating the operations of state and central cooperative banks and the development of a short-term cooperative credit structure.

NAFSCOB provides its members and their affiliates, shareholders, and owners with a common forum to project their accomplishments, focus their concerns, and promote their interests.

Amit Shah will also present Performance Awards to selected State Cooperative Banks, District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs), and PACS, as well as congratulate a few short-term cooperative credit institutions on their 100th anniversary.

According to the release, the government has been working to improve agriculture and rural areas, and as the government's investment in agriculture infrastructure grows, so does the role and potential of cooperatives.

According to Amit Shah, the Government of India also has plans to expand rural cooperative banks, known as 'Kheti Banks' in many places. Rural cooperative banks currently provide direct finance to farmers, and it is now being considered that rural cooperative banks can also disburse medium and long-term finance via PACS. He stated that much good work in the field of cooperatives has occurred in the last 100 years, but that it is insufficient. In the year of the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, there should be a resolve to do better than we have done in the previous 100 years in order to strengthen the cooperative movement for the next 100 years.

PACS has about 13 crore members, 5 crore of whom take loans, and PACS disburses loans worth more than Rs 2 lakh crore every year. He claims that if PACS increases fivefold, the Rs. 2 lakh crore figure could rise to Rs. 10 lakh crore. The aim should disburse agricultural finance worth Rs. 10 lakh crore through cooperatives. He also stated that a provision in the By-laws for sick PACS has been suggested to the States.

The sick PACS should be liquidated to make way for new PACS. Farmers should not be denied the benefits of cooperatives, and provisions for the creation of new PACS must be made in state by-laws and cooperative laws; only then will the figure of three lakh PACS be achieved.