Friday, 09 September 2022 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Cooperatives minister Dhan Singh Rawat has said that the department of Cooperatives is undertaking all necessary efforts to double the income of farmers in the State through initiatives like the Rs 3,400 crore National Cooperatives Development Corporation (NCDC) project given to the State by the Union government. He was speaking at the conclave of the cooperative ministers of the country at Vigyan Bhawan New Delhi on Thursday. The conclave was chaired by the Union Home and Cooperatives minister Amit Shah.
Rawat said that with the help of the NCDC project, the Badri Ghee is being sold by the farmers of Uttarakhand at Rs 2,500 per kilogramme. He said that 10 goats each have been given to 15,000 farmers in the State under the scheme and Himalayan goat villages are being set up in Uttarakhand. Rawat said that the Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS) which were in 22 per cent profit were converted to Multipurpose Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (MPACS) in the State and now they are in 84 per cent profit. He told the conclaves that the Millet mission is successfully being operated in Uttarakhand with the help of cooperative societies and locally produced millets and pulses are being purchased by the MPACS from the farmers at good prices. The produce is being sold in the country and outside on online platforms are in great demand. He said that the Uttarakhand cooperatives department is selling the Ganga Jal collected from Gangotri to the pilgrims in the country and abroad. New orchards of apples are being developed and mushroom farming is being promoted on a big scale in the State. The cooperatives have given a new market to silk and Doon Silk and the Uttarakhand Cooperative Silk Federation has come into profit of Rs one crore.
In the conclave Rawat gave seven suggestions which are formulating a policy to remove the pariwarvad in the cooperative societies, adoption of uniform core banking solutions along with computerisation of PACS and reduction in the limit of collateral securities in mid and long term loans. He also suggested that FPO and PACS should work as complementary to one another, opening of a cooperative university in every state, a national policy for transparent recruitment in cooperative societies and central assistance in the ratio of 90: 10 to the Himalayan states.
The secretary cooperatives BVRC Purushottam, registrar cooperatives Alok Kumar Pandey and additional registrar Anand Sukla also attended the conclave.
