The State cabinet on Monday decided to computerise about 12,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS). The press statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Office stated that the State cabinet has approved this Union government-sponsored scheme.
“Overall 12,000 PACS will get the benefit from the scheme and the State government will contribute its share of ₹156 crore for three years (2022-23 to 2024-25). For the year 2022-23, the State will make provision of ₹51.8 crore,” the press release said.
With initiative of NABARD 31, District Central Banks (DCBs) have been computerised but many PACS connected with DCBs are not computerised yet.
Hence farmers and members of the PACS don’t get efficient services provided by the DCBs, the State government said. It will now appoint a committee under a senior officer to monitor the execution of the computerisation programme.
First plan
Earlier, the Union Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had approved the computerisation of PACS with the objective of increasing the efficiency of PACS, bringing transparency and accountability to their operations, facilitating PACS to diversify their business, and undertake multiple activities/services.
This project proposes computerisation of about 63,000 functional PACS over five years with a total budget outlay of ₹2,516 crore with the Union government share of ₹1,528 crore.
PACS constitute the lowest of the three-tier Short-Term Cooperative Credit (STCC) in the country comprising of about 13 crore farmers as its members, which is crucial for the development of the rural economy.