Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah, while addressing the Rajya Sabha, announced that the Digital Bharat Nidhi (DBN) will create a comprehensive digital ecosystem across rural India.
The initiative will provide high-speed broadband access under BharatNet to institutions such as Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) supported by NABARD, alongside the deployment of ICT infrastructure in NABARD’s projects nationwide.
An MoU was signed on 27 March 2025 between DBN under the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and NABARD to facilitate this initiative.
Under the PACS Computerization Project, Bihar has already seen significant progress. Out of 4,495 sanctioned PACS, 4,465 have been fully onboarded onto the ERP platform, and 4,456 are operational with day-end processes, highlighting the growing digital footprint across districts.
To further strengthen rural development, agricultural marketing, and dairy production, the Ministry of Cooperation is spearheading a nationwide initiative to establish 2 lakh new Multipurpose PACS (M-PACS), along with Dairy and Fishery Cooperatives.
This effort aims to transform PACS into multipurpose institutions, integrate them with national schemes, and make access to credit, storage, and marketing facilities more convenient for farmers across the country.
Projects aimed at social inclusion – making sure marginalized groups, rural populations, people in remote areas get access to internet, mobile, digital services.