While presenting the state budget, the Madhya Pradesh government led by Shivraj Singh Chauhan has increased the budget for cooperatives from Rs 1425 crore (2021-22) to Rs 1960 crore (2022-23).
The budget was presented by Madhya Pradesh finance minister Jagdish Devda on Wednesday last week.
The other important highlights for the cooperative sector include, preparation of action plan for up- gradation of institutions in the cooperative sector and construction of agricultural infrastructure from Agriculture Infrastructure Fund.
“Provision for providing credit facility to PACS and Marketing Co-operative Societies under this action plan. The target of getting the computerization work of agricultural primary cooperative societies done in the next FY 2022-23. With this, the banking system of the societies will be strengthened and banking services will be easily available to the general public”.
Besides, for the agriculture sector, Cow welfare schemes and geographical indication tags for crops have been announced. With Rs 21,000 crore power subsidy, crop insurance and other schemes, the state will offer benefits of Rs 1.72 lakh crore to the farmers.
“Irrigation potential will be increased to 65 lakh hectares in the state by 2025. Rs 50 crore has been allocated for the proposed Chief Minister Fisheries Scheme and one lakh metric tonnes of storage capacity will be developed for horticulture crops”, reads a report by News18.com.
There are around 88k cooperative societies in Madhya Pradesh. According to an estimate, 8,336 cooperatives are in credit business whereas 39,079 cooperatives are active in noncredit fields such as labour, sugar, housing, dairy and others. It is to be noted that there are 38 DCCBs in Madhya Pradesh.