‘Agri business cooperatives for every village to strengthen rural economy’
The idea is to strengthen the rural economy and achieve what the government calls ‘prosperity through cooperation’, Ramesh Chand, NITI Aayog member said.
The government will set up agriculture-focused cooperative societies in every village where one doesn’t exist now, and will develop them into multi-sector units, giving a major fillip to the cooperative movement, NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said.
“A big movement toward rural cooperatives is happening. The government plans to set up one cooperative in agri-business in every village, where they are not there. That is the target,” Chand said in an interview. In the second stage, they will be expanded to multi-sector cooperatives dealing not only in farm produce, but also in other products. “They can go for storage of produce and they can export.”
The idea is to strengthen the rural economy and achieve what the government calls “prosperity through cooperation”.
Chand said that strengthening farmer producer organizations is a priority for the government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching on-boarding of 1,600 farmer producer organizations (FPOs) in Open Network Digital Commerce (ONDC) last month is a new initiative in this regard, he said.
“ONDC can revolutionise agriculture marketing. Through ONDC, FPOs can sell to any wholesaler, business or consumer. This is going to be a game changer,” said Chand, adding that state-level agriculture produce marketing committee (APMC) Acts are not applicable to electronic transactions.
Chand explained that onboarding FPOs into ONDC does not require any budget allocation and that the capacity-building needed will be done by an agency under the agriculture ministry.
The measures are expected to help in improving the incomes of farmers, a key goal of the NDA government.
The Centre is exploring ways of stepping up entrepreneurship among farmers and encourage community- based development through cooperatives at a time efforts to facilitate greater private sector investment in the farm sector through three new farm laws faced a setback due to farmer protests in certain states. The Centre is currently working on creating a national database of cooperatives which will help to detect the gaps in their geographical distribution and also aid in policymaking.
The government in May allowed the more than 100,000 farm credit societies having about 130 million farmers in the country as members to set up decentralized grain storage facilities to help farmers plan their sales better and to reduce wastage of agricultural produce.
This scheme was announced keeping in mind the last-mile reach of cooperative societies and their role in the rural economy.
The government wants these entities to emerge as more financially sound and viable entities. Separately, the Centre has also given several tax concessions to the cooperative sector. New cooperative societies starting manufacturing activities by the end of March next year are eligible for a 15% corporate tax rate, at par with new manufacturing companies.
Catch all the Business News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
MoreLess
First Published:15 Aug 2023, 09:56 PM IST
- Top Gainers
- Top Losers
- 52 Week High