BHUBANESWAR: The State Government is unlikely to meet the target of integrating Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) into core banking network of short term credit structure by year end due to poor internet access for online transaction of e-commerce activities.
Of the 2,600 out of 2,708 PACS and LAMPS (Large Area Multi Purpose Cooperative Societies) taken up for computerisation, only 655 societies are using realtime data.A status report of Odisha State Cooperative Bank (OSCB) said 568 PACS which migrated to its data centre earlier are not feeding daily transaction to the online application.
Seeking a progress report from all Assistant Registrar of Cooperative Societies (ARCS) on PACS computerisation, Registrar of Cooperative Societies has been asked to report availability of network of three major service providers such as BSNL, Airtel and Jio for each society.
It was decided at a high-level meeting chaired by Cooperation Minister RP Swain here on August 17 to complete PACS computerisation by December 31 and all the PACS will run on live platform. The directorate (RCS office) is yet to receive the status report from stakeholders. "PACS is one of the priority areas under the framework of implementation of 5Ts in the Directorate of RCS, which need to be implemented as per the timeline given by Government," the RCS said.
The OSCB has been directed to take steps for white-listing 4G dongle as per the available network which is being used by PACS for uninterrupted network connectivity will be available to PACS for online transaction.
“PACS having stable network connection like VSAT/Dongle has been directed to enter their transactions to the application on daily basis. Those societies which are still offline have been asked to maintain the offline data entry tool,” he added.
The accounts of PACS are to be balanced and reconciled. This needs to be verified by CCBs. All the circle ARCS need to monitor and validate the same. Even after two years of PACS computerisation programme launch, many of the societies are still doing business manually as the new system is not fully functional due to a host of reasons, internet connectivity being the major hindrance, official sources said.
The computerisation project was launched without assessing availability of necessary infrastructure like proper house, electricity, availability of computer operators at PACS.