Government approves Rs13,597-crore revival package for agricultural coops

The government has approved an outlay of Rs13,597 crore for recapitalisation of agricultural cooperatives, in order to revive the short-term cooperative credit structure, minister of states for agriculture consumer affairs, food and public distribution, KV Thomas informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply today.

An amount of Rs6,072.71 crore has been released by NABARD as the central government's share in the recapitalisation of 37,599 primary agricultural cooperative societies in ten states, while the state governments had released Rs608.13 crore as their share.

As per the recommendations of the Vaidyanathan Committee, the government has provided assistance to National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) and the National Council for Cooperative Training (NCCT) for implementing cooperative education and training in the country under the central sector scheme.

During the tenth five-year plan, a sum of Rs216.17 crore was released while an outlay of Rs149.00 crore is proposed to be made in the eleventh plan.

The government undertakes cooperative development programmes, through the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).

These programmes/schemes include: Integrated Cooperative Development Projects in selected districts; assistance to cooperative marketing, processing and storage etc in cooperatively under-developed/least developed states/ union territories; and share capital participation in growers'/ weavers' cooperative spinning mills.