Expediting co-op issues: Gyanesh Kumar meets state co-op secretaries

In order to expedite pending co-op issues, Union Minister Cooperative Secretary Gyanesh Kumar virtually addressed a meeting of cooperative secretaries and officials of different states’ cooperative departments on Thursday.

Inputs on the draft of the National Cooperative Policy which are pending from 19 States/UTs, Computerization of PACS, Model By-laws for PACS, National Database of the cooperatives, and other issues were the part of the discussion.

On this occasion, an agenda related to the establishment of a new national university for the cooperative sector was also discussed which includes, the existing infrastructure available in the State for Education and Training in the Cooperative Sector and suggestion for the proposed new National Level University for the Cooperative Sector.

After the meeting talking to Indian Cooperative Uttarakhand Cooperative Secretary BVR Purushottam, IAS said, “The meeting was very fruitful and the deliberation was made on the issues related to empowering the cooperative sector of the country. We told the Union cooperative secretary about the initiatives taken in our state to strengthen the movement”.

“The computerization work of 100 PACs in our state has been over and we are planning to make them live. There are 647 PACs in the state and the computerization work of the remaining PACs will be completed by the end of this year”, he said on the phone.

He further added that We have also asked for 15 days’ time for submitting the draft of the National Cooperative Policy. We are working hard to make the PACs viable and vibrant.

Cooperative secretaries of many states including Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam, and officials of the cooperative departments participated in the meeting through a virtual medium.

Meanwhile, sources added that the Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah is also planning to call a meeting of cooperative ministers of respective states sooner than later.

Prior to the day of the meeting, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the go-ahead to computerize about 63,000 PACS, which are the smallest unit in the cooperative sector.

The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said 63,000 PACS will be computerized at a cost of Rs 2,516 crore, which will benefit about 13 crore small and marginal farmers.