19% Of India's Agriculture Finance Is Through Cooperative Societies: Amit Shah

Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Friday said that 19 per cent of our agriculture finance is done through cooperative societies. 35 per cent of fertiliser distribution, 30 per cent fertiliser production, 40 per cent of sugar production, 13 per cent of procurement of wheat and 20 per cent of paddy procurement is done by cooperatives only.

While addressing the Cooperative Beneficiaries Conference in Bengaluru Shah said, "Out of 30 lakh cooperatives in the whole world, 9 lakh cooperatives are in India only. About 91 per cent of India's population is linked to a cooperative in one way or another, with cooperatives covering 70 per cent of the country's farmers through PACS."

He said that there are 33 state-level cooperative banks, 363 district-level cooperative banks and 63,000 PACS in the country.

He further said that after the formation of the Ministry of Cooperation, many decisions were taken, such as to bring transparency in cooperatives, computerization of 63,000 PACS across the country has been done at a cost of Rs 2,500 crore.

Apart from this, one cooperative society will be formed in every panchayat of the country, which will be multi-purpose and NABARD, NDDB and the ministry have prepared an action plan to form 2 lakh new such cooperative societies in three years.