Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah informed the Lok Sabha that Bihar has recorded significant progress under various Central and State initiatives aimed at supporting small and marginal farmers, improving storage infrastructure, and strengthening dairy cooperatives.
Responding to a written question, Shah said the Government has launched several measures to address inadequate storage, limited market access for perishables, and to strengthen cooperative dairies across the country, including Bihar.
He stated that the World’s Largest Grain Storage Plan in the Cooperative Sector, approved on 31 May 2023, is being implemented as a pilot. The plan focuses on creating agri-infrastructure at the PACS level, such as godowns, custom hiring centres, processing units, Fair Price Shops and cold storage, through convergence of existing Government of India schemes like AIF, AMI, SMAM, PMFME and MIDH.
For Bihar specifically, Shah highlighted that over 7,221 godowns with a storage capacity of 17.14 LMT have been constructed under a State Government scheme. Under the MIDH scheme, now converged with the storage plan, assistance is being provided for cold storages, ripening chambers and processing units for horticulture crops including litchi.
He added that under the PMFME scheme, litchi is included under the One District One Product (ODOP) category, supporting micro-enterprises involved in processing.
To strengthen dairy cooperatives, Shah said that since the approval of the plan on 15 February 2023, Bihar has registered 4,460 new Primary Dairy Cooperative Societies and strengthened 834 dairy cooperative societies.
He further noted that 12,112 Dairy Cooperative Societies have been registered so far by the Bihar State Cooperative Milk Federation.
