Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on Wednesday inaugurated 10,000 newly formed multipurpose Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS), dairy, and fisheries cooperative societies.
He emphasised the importance of cooperatives in every panchayat, stating that primary cooperative societies will play a crucial role in strengthening the country’s three-tier cooperative structure, adding that these PACS will be multi-dimensional, offering a range of services beyond traditional banking and credit.
“Co-operatives should work in some form or the other in every Panchayat and if anyone can give the maximum strength to the three-tier co-operative structure of our country, it can be our primary co-operative societies and therefore the first decision we took was that 2 lakh PACs will be formed,” Amit Shah said while speaking at national conference of Cooperatives here.
He said that the Government have linked many facilities with PACS, making it multi-dimensional.
“We made PACS multi-dimensional, linked them with storage, linked them with distribution of manure, linked them with gas distribution, linked them with fertilizer distribution, linked them with water distribution, these became community service centers also, railway booking can also be done there, airline booking can also be done from the village itself and we have linked many facilities with PACS,” he added.
He noted that the Union Government issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for liquidating the defunct PACSs.
“For liquidating the defunct PACS, we have issued an SOP. We know that if a PAC existed in a village another cannot be formed. Through this SOP, new PACSs will be opened in 15,000 villages,” he said.
Amit Shah also distributed registration certificates, RuPay Kisan Credit Cards (KCC), and micro ATMs to the newly formed cooperative societies. These financial tools are designed to provide easy access to credit services in panchayats and promote financial inclusion, enabling the rural population to benefit from various schemes and participate in the nation’s economic progress.
The formation of new M-PACS will promote the growth of cooperative institutions in rural areas. The newly established multipurpose PACS include credit societies, dairy cooperatives, and fisheries cooperatives.
To provide economic support to PACS, new model bye-laws have been introduced, and their activities have been expanded to ensure their viability and sustainability.
According to the Ministry of Cooperation, to realize Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of “Sehkar Se Samriddhi”, Amit Shah has set a goal to establish a cooperative institution in every panchayat across the country within the next five years.
To achieve this, a ‘Margdarshika’ for the formation of Multipurpose PACS (M-PACS) was issued in September 2024. This Margdarshika is designed to ensure the effective functioning of the two lakh new M-PACS that are to be established nationwide.