BHUBANESWAR: Even as the State Government claimed to have digitised its three-tier cooperative credit structure by integrating primary cooperative societies with the District Cooperative Central Banks (DCCBs), only 655 primary societies are able to provide real-time banking services.
While internet connectivity is one of the biggest hurdles in extending banking services in rural areas, unstable power supply has rendered the computerisation programme useless.
The State Government initiated the computerisation programme of primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACS) and Large Area Multi Purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS) in 2013 and awarded the job to VSoft Technologies, a global provider of information and technology solutions for financial institutions.
Of the 2,708 PACS and LAMPS in the State, computerisation has been completed in 2,600 societies. While 2,300 of the societies have successfully completed the process of data migration to the data centre of Odisha State Cooperative Bank (OSCB), only 655 societies are using real time data, official sources said.
In the absence of dedicated broadband connections, the State Government had decided to provide connectivity to these primary societies through GPRS. As GPRS connectivity was not feasible in some areas, steps have been taken to provide internet connection through VSAT.
Meanwhile, 457 VSAT has been set up for providing internet service to 581 primary societies.
Even after a year of launching PACS computerisation programme, many of the societies are still doing business in manual way as the new system is not fully functional due to a host of reasons, informed sources said. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated PACS computerisation programme with the launching of RuPay Kisan Cards at a State-level function here in July last year.
The objective of PACS computerisation is to help farmers draw their sanctioned loans from the ATM network of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and timely settlement of their dues through Direct Benefit Transfers to their accounts.
Data migration
Of 2,708 PACS and LAMPS in the State, computerisation completed in 2,600 societies
Migration to data centre of OSCB successfully completed in 2,300 societies
Only 655 primary societies able to provide real-time banking service