National Cooperative Development Cooperation is back in the news once again as Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has decided to hand over NCDC’s cheque of Rs 100 crore to the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand on Thursday.
“Modi will hand over a cheque of Rs.100 crore to the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, towards the first instalment of fund under Integrated Cooperative Development Project, transferred by National Cooperative Development Cooperation to the State Government”, reads a govt release.
Prime Minister is visiting Rudrapur, Uttarakhand today where he will launch the State Integrated Cooperative Development Project and distribute loan cheques to a select few beneficiaries of the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Farmers Welfare Scheme.
Integrated Cooperative Development Project aims to drastically improve the rural economy in Uttarakhand by giving a boost to the co-operative, farming and allied sectors. It will help in checking the forced migration from the hills of Uttarakhand by providing adequate support to those involved in agricultural and allied activities.
Under this scheme of the Uttarakhand Government, multi-purpose loans of up to one lakh rupees will be made available to the farmers at a low interest rate of 2 percent. The scheme is an important step towards the goal of doubling the income of farmers in the State by 2022.
Readers would recall Indian Cooperative had featured a story on this theme titled” Co-op model of growth to rewrite fate of Uttarakhand”.
An integrated development model putting together all cooperatives in the state is presently in the works. The state govt has hired Synergy Consultant for the purpose which is busy preparing the Detailed Project Report.
NCDC is playing a major role in this even as surveys on an unheard of scale in each village and Panchayats of the state have undertaken weighing up strengths and weaknesses of each and every Primary Cooperative Society. Activities such as Goshthi, Sabha, meeting PACS officials, villagers and farmers were conducted.
This is a project that would indeed prove a game-changer and the idea has such a huge appeal that everybody from Union Minister Radha Mohan, the state CM, co-op dept and PACS officials are involved in it. They all feel this is either now or never, said an official connected closely with the project. He expressed satisfaction with the involvement of Prime Minister in this.