Plan to bring agri credit societies under CBS

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) plans to provide Core Banking Solutions to all Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies (PACCS) in the State.

In Tiruchi district, all 147 PACCS will be brought under the Core Banking Solutions. State and district level committees have been formed to implement the plan. It is expected that nearly 4,500 PACCS will be connected with net banking.

Suresh, Assistant General Manager, NABARD, told The Hindu that the Joint Registrar of Cooperatives, Managing Director of Tiruchi District Central Cooperative Bank, and a few others had been made as district-level committee members to implement the plan. In the first phase, viable and healthy societies would be provided with CBS. The process of identifying well-maintained societies was on.

K.C. Ravichandran, Joint Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Tiruchi, said that almost all cooperative credit societies had already been brought under the Common Accounting Software. All transactions, including deposits, credits, crop loan distribution, payments, fertilizer sales and sale of agricultural inputs, had been made electronic entries. Out of 147 PACCS in Tiruchi, about 120 PACCS had been identified as better performing in terms of customer base, deposits, credits and accounting system. Better performing societies will be given priority in Core Banking Solution plan.

Mr. Suresh said the process of identifying vendors for the CBS plan had begun at the national level. Local-level support would be made if necessary. All infrastructures for net banking, including Wi-Fi, routers and computers, would be created in all PACCS. Once the plan was in place, the PACCS would be able to transfer funds to the accounts of customers across the country.

“Time is not far away for agricultural credit societies to function as commercial banks. It will improve the efficiency of credit societies,” says Mr. Suresh.