Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah will inaugurate a day-long mega conclave Strengthening PACS through FPOs in New Delhi on July 14, 2023. The conclave is aimed at discussing ways to strengthen https://exam.pscnotes.com/primary-agricultural-credit-societies”>Primary Agricultural credit Societies (PACS) through Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs).
The conclave will witness participation of experts from the sector as well as members from the FPOs across the country. The mega conclave is being organized by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) in collaboration with the Union Ministry of Cooperation.
With an important initiative of the Ministry of Cooperation Ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has recently allocated additional blocks to NCDC to form and promote 1100 FPOs in Cooperative Sector through strengthening of PACS under the scheme to bolster the cooperative sector and provide comprehensive support to small and marginal farmers.
Under the FPOs Scheme, financial assistance of Rs.33 lakh is provided to each FPO. Further, financial assistance of Rs. 25 lakh per FPO is given to the Cluster Based Business Organizations (CBBOs) for promoting and handholding the FPOs.
The Government has been pushing for integration of the PACS in the FPO scheme to enable the farmers to expand their business range of activities such as supply of production inputs; agricultural equipments like cultivator, tiller, harvester, etc. and processing and value addition, including cleaning, assaying, sorting, grading, packing, storage, transportation, etc.
The PACS have a huge member base of around 13 crore farmers who are primarily engaged in short-term credit and distribution of seeds, Fertilizers, etc. Presently, more than 86% of farmers in the country are small and marginal.
The NCDC is a statutory organisation under Ministry of Cooperation with the mandate to plan, promote, and finance cooperatives for increasing production and productivity and instituting post-harvest facilities.