Cooperatives have the potential to tackle the personal issues of farmers with collective strength, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while inaugurating multiple key initiatives for the cooperative sector here on Saturday. The Prime Minister inaugurated the pilot project of “world’s largest grain storage plan” in cooperative sector, which is being done in 11 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) of 11 States. Mr. Modi also laid the foundation stone for additional 500 PACS across the country for construction of warehouses and other agriculture-related infrastructure under this initiative.
The Centre said the initiative aims to integrate PACS warehouses with the food grain supply chain, fortifying food security and fostering economic development in the country with a collaborative effort supported by NABARD and spearheaded by the National Cooperative Development Corporation. He also launched a project for computerisation in 18,000 PACS across the country.
“The power of cooperation has a huge role in strengthening the foundation of agriculture and farming, this has led to a separate Ministry for Cooperation,” he said adding that the new storage plan will result in thousands of warehouses and godowns in every corner of the country. “This and other projects like computerisation of PACs will give new dimensions to agriculture and modernise farming in the country,” he hoped.
He said the spirit of cooperatives is beyond the boundaries of systems and resources and produces exceptional results. “The benefits of cooperatives are now reaching fishermen and pushupalaks also. More than 25,000 cooperative units are functional in the fishery sector,” he said underlining that cooperatives have the potential to tackle the personal issues of farmers with collective strength and gave the example of storage.
He asked the cooperatives to list the items for which the country is dependent on import and explore how the cooperative sector can help with producing them locally and gave examples of edible oil and ethanol that can reduce dependence on edible oil imports for energy needs. “Many manufacturing goods can also be taken up by the cooperatives,” he said.
Union Minister for Home Affairs and Cooperation Amit Shah, Union Minister for Agriculture Arjun Munda, and Union Minister for Commerce Piyush Goyal were also present on the occasion.
