Primary agricultural credit societies in all panchayats soon
Recently, Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) will be set up in all the Panchayats of the country.
Recently, Eastern and North Eastern Region Cooperative Dairy Conference, 2022 has been inaugurated. During this conference, the Union Home and Cooperation Minister said that PACS will be established in all the panchayats of the country.
At present, there are only 65,000 active packs in the country. PACS are registered as cooperative societies. It provides the following facilities to its members.
Input facilities in cash or in kind:
- PACS play their role at the lowest level in the three-tier system of short-term cooperative credit (STCC) in the country. About 13 crore farmers are included as its members. The other two levels in the three-tier system are ‘State Co-operative Banks at the state level and District Central Co-operative Banks at the district level’.
- PACS is outside the purview of the Banking Regulation Act, Therefore, they are not regulated by the Reserve Bank of India.
- PACS accounts for 41 per cent of the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans given by all institutions in the country. 95 percent of these KCC loans have been given to small and marginal farmers through PACS.
- Recently, the Central Government has approved the computerization of PACS with the objective of increasing the efficiency of PACS and bringing transparency and accountability in their operation.
Source – The Hindu
