VIJAYAWADA: The financial assistance in the form of loans and grants by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) to cooperative societies and federations across Andhra Pradesh has witnessed a sharp jump of around 370% in the last two years. The financial assistance provided by the NCDC to the cooperative societies/federations went up from Rs 2,831.59 crore in 2021- 22 to Rs 13,280.13 crore in 2023-24.
There are 17,675 registered cooperative societies in Andhra Pradesh as per the data available on the National Cooperative Database (NCD) portal, Union Minister for Cooperation Amit Shah said in the Rajya Sabha in response to a question raised by YSRC MP Parimal Nathwani.
The Union Minister also stated that the NCDC provides financial assistance to cooperatives societies/federations across the country. As per the information received from the NCDC, in the last three years, the total amount disbursed as loan is Rs 1,34,670.90 crore, while the total amount disbursed as grants is Rs 1,200.04 crore, said the minister.
According to the statement of the minister, to strengthen PACS, a project for computerisation of functional PAC S with a total financial outlay of Rs 2,516 crore has been approved by the Government of India, which entails bringing all functional PACS in the country onto a common ERP based national software, linking them with NA BARD through State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) and District Cooperative Central Banks (DCCBs).
A total of 67,009 PACS from 30 States/UTs have been sanctioned under the project. The hardware has been procured by 28 States/UTs. A total of 25,674 PACS have been onboarded on ERP software and 15,207 PACS have gone live, said the minister.
As per the statement, the GoI share amounting to Rs 654.22 crore was released to 29 States/ UTs in the years 2022-23, 2023- 24 and 2024-25 for procurement of hardware, digitisation, and setting up of support system.
Nathwani wanted to know about the number of co-operative societies registered in the country, the steps taken by the government for revitalising, bringing transparency, modernising, creating competitiveness and capacity building of societies and the financial assistance provided by the government for capacity expansion of these societies after the formation of a separate ministry for it.