In pre budget consultations, Chief Executive N Satyanarayan of the apex national cooperative body NCUI urged Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to ease the crisis co-operative banks across India are facing in the wake of demonetization.
“These banks cater to the needs of farmers and this being sowing season untold hardships are being felt across the countryside”, he is reported to have said. Readers would recall that co-op banks have been prevented from participating in the exchange of higher currencies and this has derailed farm activities.
NCUI Chief Executive calling for the strengthening of PACS told the Minister PACS as the building blocks of the cooperative movement deserve to be funded by the govt to build godowns and cold storages. It would go a long way in helping the farmers, he added.
In his presentation before Arun Jaitley Satyanarayan also demanded restoration of IT exemption for cooperatives. IT exemption was started by British who felt cooperatives are doing social service and need govt support. What change has come about that this exemption was withdrawn, CE argued.
NCUI also demanded level-playing field in the matter of dividend earnings from foreign countries for cooperatives.
Other agriculture groups also urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to provide sufficient funds to district cooperative banks, where most farmers have their bank accounts.
The representatives of agriculture groups also called for making mandatory for agriculture universities to start Agriculture Marketing Research Departments, new schemes to bail out farmers in debt to be announced in the forthcoming Budget and banks to be directed to implement schemes at differential rate of interest for the agriculture sector.
Besides these, the agricultural groups also suggested awards for those who develop technological innovations in the agriculture sector, cold chain provision for horticulture, and higher Budgetary allocation for agriculture as 52 per cent of India’s population is dependent on agriculture and allied sectors.
In order to double farmers’ income by 2022, focus should be on higher agriculture productivity, especially in view of the limitation on expanding crop area and this is possible only by leveraging technology, efficient utilisation of water for irrigation, adoption of the latest IT to increase resilience to nature, FM said in an official statement.