Ministry of Cooperation Aims to Develop 2 Lakh New PACS as Dairy, Fishery Cooperatives in 5 Years

All maize farmers have been advised to register themselves on Farmers’ portal for procurement by NCCF and NAFED under the Ethanol Blending Program. It will be a win-win for farmers and the ethanol blending mission, Union Cooperation Secretary, Dr Ashish Kumar Bhutani said at a comprehensive stakeholder consultation on the theme ‘Development of Cooperative Sector: Empowering Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) for Self-Sufficiency.’ He added that the focus on creating 2 lakh new multi-purpose PACS is with the vision to cover more and more uncovered and under-covered areas of the country.

The event brought together key players from various sectors to discuss the strengthening of cooperative societies in the country. Stakeholders from all across the country including Chairpersons and MDs of various National Federations including National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) were present while more than 200 other stakeholders from across the country participated virtually.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Bhutani said that in accordance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘Sahkar Se Samriddhi’, the Ministry will complete the digitization process of all PACS in the country by the end of this year or January 2025. Under the guidance of Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah, the Ministry of Cooperation envisages to establish viable cooperatives in every Panchayat with a focus to develop 2 Lakh new PACS as dairy, and fishery cooperatives within next five years.

Dr. Bhutani said that the Ministry is geared up to procure maize at Minimum Support Price (MSP) as promised by Union Minister of Cooperation Shah. He urged all maize farmers to register themselves on Farmers’ portal for procurement by National Cooperative Consumer Federation (NCCF) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) under Ethanol Blending Program. This will be beneficial for both farmers and Ethanol Blending Program, he said.

Shah had recently announced the revised targets of 20 per cent Ethanol blending in petroleum and diesel and curtailed its earlier timeline for achieving it from 2030 to 2025-26. The consultation on digitization of PACS focused on bringing all the functional PACS onto an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) based common national software, linking them with NABARD through State Cooperative Banks and District Central Cooperative Banks.

So far, proposals to computerize 67,930 PACS from 30 States/UTs have been sanctioned under the Project and Central share amounting to Rs 654.23 Crore has been released to the States/UTs for procurement of hardware, digitization of legacy data and establishing support system. Rs 141 crore has also been released to NABARD under the project. As on August 30, a total of 31,301 PACS across 29 States/UTs have been onboarded on the ERP Software and 21,477 PACS have gone live. 54,654 PACS have received hardware for digitization.

In order to make PACS into viable business entities, model bye laws were framed to make them work as multipurpose entities undertaking economic activities in various fields ranging from agriculture and allied activities to distribution of petroleum products, fertilizers and seeds.

Besides, steps have been taken to further strengthen PACS by incentivizing farmers to produce maize and pulses. It has been decided to procure the full produce of pre-registered farmers producing maize and pulses, at minimum support prices. The consultation concluded with a consensus on the need for continued collaboration among stakeholders to ensure the successful implementation of the discussed strategies.

There was a strong commitment to empowering PACS, enhancing their capabilities, and supporting them in becoming self-sufficient entities that can significantly contribute to the nation's agricultural and economic development.