The Bihar cabinet on Saturday approved Rs 800 crore loan to the cooperative banks in the state for procurement of paddy.Indiancooperative.com has reported earlier that the state government has decided a big role for Primary Agriculture Cooperative societies in the state.
“Every PAC will have the storage capacity of 200 tonnes of foodgrains and we have started work on 2200 PACs at present,” deputy CM Sushil Modi had said..
Deputy Chief Minister S K Modi wants to follow the existing system of procurement of paddy and Public Distribution System in Chhattisgarh and said his government too has decided to implement similar system in the state.
He said the state government had planned to equip 8500 PACs with computers and link them with headquarters which would ensure early survey of crops of farmers for purchase of foodgrains during the Kharif season.
PACs whould set up a data base of the paddy crop being cultivated by the individual farmers and allot them an identification number so that they could be contacted directly for procurement of paddy.
PACs have been directed to make an assessment of the expenditure to be incurred by it for procurement of paddy during this season so that adequate funds be made available to it through the cooperative banks.
Modi directed the officials to ensure payment to the farmers through account payee cheques for paddy procurement.
Readers may recall that state government superseded the board of 14 district cooperative banks and board of about 300 Vyapar mandals across the state.
The loan will be given to the cooperative banks from the state contingency fund for which necessary amendment will be made in the contingency provisions.