Lucknow: As part of the central government strategy to bring transparency in the cooperative sector, the Government of Uttar Pradesh will digitize the function of 7,479 Agricultural Cooperative Communities (PACS) at a cost of Rs 210 Crore.
Micro ATM will also be installed at every PAC.
Government spokesman said that PAC will be given financial assistance by the Center and Nabard.
“The government has the view that digitizing PACS and providing Micro ATMs will benefit more than one crore farmer associated with it.
They will be able to get fertilizers, seeds, and harvest loans easily through PAC with this step,” he said.
The official said that the Ministry of Cooperation Union has prepared a scheme of modernization and digitization of more than 97,000 PACs in the country where the budget around Rs 2,000-3,000 Crore was intended to be spent for the next five years.
“PACS is a village-level loan institution based on cooperative principles, providing loans to villagers and buying agricultural products.
Many PACs also work as gas and transportation institutions while some have established cold storage and food processing units,” explained.
‘The government will spend 25,000 on installing Micro Atm’an officials say that under the central government’s plan, 65,000 PACS from 97,961 will be digitized first.
About 35,000 PACs are inactive, including some of the above.
Even though this society is not active, more cannot be arranged in the gram of Panchayat until this is insoluble.
“The government has planned to establish PAC at the village level.
At present, PAC is formed at the Level of Pancayat.
The government will spend RS 3 Lakh on computerized one PAC while Rs 25,000 will be spent on installing A Micro ATM,” he said.
A spokesman said that by computerizing PAC, all farmers’ data would be available online, including details about their land and bank accounts that would be associated with the district cooperative bank.
The village land map will also be digitized.
Information available with PACS will also contain details about which grants have been received by farmers and which schemes they have taken.