Wednesday, 15 February 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has said that efforts are needed to strengthen the cooperative sector to increase livelihood in the mountainous parts of the State. The CM gave this direction while undertaking a meeting with the officers of the Cooperative department and cooperative banks at the secretariat here on Tuesday. He directed the officers to make such arrangements so that maximum number of people get the benefit of different schemes of the government. For schemes of a similar nature, the benefit of mixed loans should be provided to the people. The CM said that the cooperative banks should work in the direction of reducing the Non Performing Assets (NPAs). Dhami further said that the banks should undertake efforts especially in the mountainous areas to increase the credit deposit ratio. He suggested that for increasing the income of the people special focus should be laid on increasing economic activities in the State and the cluster based approach should be promoted. Dhami said that the cooperative activities needed to be increased in the mountainous areas and effort should be made to increase the production of millets in the State. He said that the process of disbursing loans should be simplified and the different schemes of public welfare should be publicised by holding camps and seminars.
The Cooperatives minister Dhan Singh Rawat said that there has been a marked decrease in the NPAs of the cooperative banks of the State in the last five years. The NPA was about 20 per cent five years ago and now it has reduced to 3.81 per cent. The banks are working in the direction of providing facilities for mobile banking. The minister added that the work on computerisation of all Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS) has been completed and recruitment in the cooperative banks is being done by the IBPS.
Secretaries R Meenakshi Sundaram, BVRC Purushottam, additional registrar of cooperatives Ira Upreti, cooperatives MD Niraj Belwal and others were also present on the occasion.
