BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has decided to provide Internet connectivity to Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) operating in unbanked gram panchayats (GPs) to enable them to provide banking services.
As many as 4,400 of 6,234 GPs of the State are without bank branches. About 1.65 crore people constituting 47 percent of the rural population do not have proper access to banking facilities.
Chief Secretary AP Padhi, who reviewed the performance of Cooperation Department here on Wednesday, asked officials to complete computerisation of all PACs before March, 2017.
Of 2,714 PACS, 214 Large Sized Agricultural Multi-purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS) and six Farmers’ Service Societies (FSS), computerisation has been completed in 2,011 societies. There is no Internet connectivity in areas where 841 such primary societies are operating.
The Chief Secretary asked the department to provide Internet connectivity to these societies through the V-SAT and expedite the process of computerisation of farmers’ data base. He further advised to integrate the farmers’ data with Bhulekh, the land record web portal of the Government, with Aadhar seeding.
Claiming that Odisha has taken the lead in computerisation of primary cooperative societies in the country, Cooperation Secretary Manoj Ahuja said computerisation of PACS will help farmers in a big way. All possible measures have been taken to provide Rupay cards to all Kisan Credit Card holders.
The department is in the process of bringing changes in Odisha State Agricultural Produce Marketing Act to further improve agricultural marketing and functioning of Odisha State Agricultural Marketing (OSAM) Board. A Bill to amend the existing Act will be introduced in the coming budget session of the Assembly, he said.
Ahuja said the OSAM Board has signed an agreement with Engineering Projects (India) Ltd, a public sector enterprise under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, for construction of 11 cold storages in the State by March, 2018.