National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) is playing a vital role in fulfilling the vision of the Union Government of doing computerization of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) of the country.
In the financial year 2022, NABARD cumulatively sanctioned Rs 30 crore to Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and disbursed Rs 15 crore to Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Telangana under its ‘stimulus grant support for PACS’ computerisation’ which aims at achieving computerisation of 300 PACS in each state.
Nabard’s annual report for the 2021-22 FY reads, it also has been building a database to facilitate the computerisation of PACS. It has initiated a project for capturing comprehensive geographic, infrastructural, and financial data of around 95,000 PACS, by mapping the data up to the village level. The database for 76,000 PACS has already been created.
“This comprehensive PACS database will serve as a reference for all assistance under schemes such as PACS as multi-service centers, PACS computerisation, and other future initiatives. It will also give a digital push to agriculture by geotagging PACS, linking to Agristack, etc”, it further reads.
Under the ‘special refinance facility’ introduced in the FY2021 to transform 35,000 PACS into multiservice centers by the FY2023, Rs 439.1 lakh was sanctioned (Madhya Pradesh Rajya Sahakari Bank Maryadit: Rs 97 lakh; Sikkim State Cooperative Bank: Rs 4.9 lakh; and Karnataka State Cooperative Bank: Rs 337.2 lakh) and Rs 4.9 lakh disbursed during the FY2022.
The PACS Development Cells (PDCs), currently established and functional in 94 DCCBs/StCBs, have assisted 2,556 PACS operating in 20 states. During FY2022, Rs 14 lakh was disbursed for functional PDCs in four states—Bihar, Kerala, Nagaland, and Telangana, it added.
According to Nabard’s data, there are 95,509 PACS covering 6.3 lakh villages with 13.8 crore members.
In the first year i.e. 2022-23, the target of computerization of 13,000 Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS) has been fixed, said Union Cooperative Minister Amit Shah while replying to a query in parliament recently.
Readers would recall that the Union Government would do computerization of 63,000 PACS at a cost of Rs 2,516 crore.
Any one not think about the PACS employees.