Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah announced that the Ministry of Cooperation is implementing the ‘Grant in Aid to NCDC for Strengthening of Cooperative Sugar Mills (CSMs)’ scheme to enhance the financial flow to cooperative sugar mills.
Under this initiative, a grant of Rs 1,000 crore has been provided to the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) during the financial years 2022-23 and 2024-25.
NCDC will leverage this grant to raise additional funds from the market, enabling it to provide financial assistance of up to Rs 10,000 crore to cooperative sugar mills.
The funds will support the mills in setting up ethanol and cogeneration plants, as well as meeting their working capital requirements. So far, NCDC has sanctioned 87 loans worth Rs 9,893.12 crore to 48 cooperative sugar mills under this scheme.
The financial assistance disbursed to sugar cooperatives over the past three years has seen a significant increase. In the financial year 2021-22, Rs 1,241.61 crore was disbursed, followed by Rs 693.79 crore in 2022-23. The disbursement rose sharply to Rs 2,176.31 crore in 2023-24, and in the current financial year 2024-25 (up to March 6, 2025), it has reached Rs 5,333.13 crore.