The implementation of various schemes aimed to strengthen the Cooperative movement and its reach to the grassroots level was reviewed during the meeting of the first State Cooperative Development Committee (SCDC) chaired by Advisor Ladakh Dr. Pawan Kotwal on August 2.

Dr. Kotwal reviewed the interventions being adopted to make Primary Cooperative Societies vibrant entities of the economy. 

He reviewed the status of the adoption of model bye-laws by Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS) for making them multipurpose and multi-dimensional, the status of hardware purchase, and finalizing system integration for the computerisation of PACS.

District-wise targets for establishing new multipurpose PACS or primary Dairy Fisheries Cooperative Societies in uncovered Panchayats/Villages; selection of PACS for the pilot projects for the world's largest Decentralised Grain Storage Plan in Cooperative Sector, were also deliberated upon during the meeting.

One PACS in each State/UT with the largest gap between grain production and grain storage is to be selected for the pilot phase. In this regard, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has started onboarding all PACS that are shortlisted for computerisation as Common Service Centres for providing more than 300 services to their members as well as rural citizens.

Advisor directed the committee to make coordinated efforts to achieve the targets of various initiatives of the Ministry of Cooperation to further strengthen the cooperative ecosystem. The Advisor also laid thrust on intensifying the activities and ensuring the active involvement of the committee members to achieve the set targets in a time-bound manner.

The chair was also informed that to diversify the business activities of PACS to make them vibrant economic entities, various initiatives like the opening up of Jan Aushadhi Kendra, and LPG/ Petrol/ Diesel distribution outlets are being undertaken by Union/State Government for which PACS registered in UT Ladakh shall be taken up in a phased manner.