NEW DELHI: Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday inaugurated 10,000 new multi-purpose Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), saying the government is working on a mission mode to achieve its target of establishing 2 lakh such societies in the next five years.
“The prosperity through cooperation cannot be achieved unless cooperatives function effectively at the panchayat level. The government is working to ensure prosperity at panchayats,” Shah said at the launch event. “We have kept a target of setting up 2 lakh PACS in five years. I want to tell you that we will establish 2 lakh PACS before five years. In three months, we established 10,000 new PACS,” the minister said.
He said 10,000 new MPACS have been inaugurated on the birth centenary of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “This milestone is deeply symbolic, as it was during Atal ji’s tenure that the 97th Constitutional Amendment was enacted, highlighting his commitment to revitalise the long-overlooked cooperative sector,” he added.
Shah said a standard operating procedure (SOP) was framed on September19 and within just 86 days the registration of 10,000 PACS was competed. He emphasised how PM Narendra Modi’s working on the motto “sahkar se samridhi” (prosperity through cooperation) has crated the ministry of cooperation.
“The primary cooperative societies are the foundation of India’s three-tier cooperative structure, which is why the Modi government has set an ambitious target to establish 2 lakh new PACS,” he said.
The initiative will be rolled out in two phases, with NABARD establishing 32,750 new multipurpose PACS in the first phase, while NDDB will set up 56,500 dairy cooperatives and NFDB 6,000 fishery cooperatives.
Need for digitalisation
Amit Shah highlighted the importance of digitalisation in the cooperative sector, noting that the government has computerised existing PACS and integrated them with 32 different initiatives. He said cooperatives cannot operate if there is no trained manpower, urging societies to utilise the new training module.