Two lakh agriculture credit societies, fishery-dairy cooperatives to be set up

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved setting up of 2 lakh new primary agriculture credit societies (PACS) and dairy-fishery cooperatives in uncovered villages and panchayats over the next five years to strengthen cooperative movement in the country. At present, there are around 63,000 functional PACS out of nearly 99,000 PACS across the country. There are still 1.6 lakh panchayats without PACS and nearly 2 lakh panchayats without any dairy cooperative society.

The ministry of cooperation has formulated a plan to establish viable PACS in each uncovered panchayat, viable dairy cooperatives in each uncovered panchayat/village and viable fishery cooperatives in each coastal panchayat/village as well as panchayat/ village having large water bodies, an official statement said.

"Initially, 2 lakh PACS/dairy/fishery cooperatives would be established in the next five years. The action plan for implementation of the project shall be prepared by Nabard, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and National Fishery Development Board (NFDB)," the statement said.

The Cabinet decision would help in providing farmer members with requisite forward and backward linkages to market their produce, enhance their income, and obtain credit facilities and other services at the village level itself. Our Bureau