New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated the pilot project of ‘World’s Largest Grain Storage Scheme in Cooperative Sector’ in 11 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACSs) in 11 states. Along with this, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for an additional 500 PACSs across the country for the creation of godowns and other agriculture-related infrastructure and also inaugurated the project for the computerisation of 18,000 PACSs.
Union Minister for Home and Cooperation, Amit Shah, said that the complete computerisation of more than 18,000 PACSs was starting today. He said its trial run was conducted, legacy data was computerised and with the inauguration by PM Modi, every transaction will be computerised from now on. “In a very short time, the computerisation of 18,000 out of 65,000 PACSs has been completed and very soon 30,000 more PACSs will be computerised and dedicated to the people,” he said. He said Rs.2500 crores were approved for expenditure on the computerisation of PACSs to strengthen them.
Shah attributed the reason for the grain storage scheme being implemented as a pilot project to the fact that it was a new initiative which would incorporate many ministries. “After identifying and removing its shortcomings, it would be implemented at the grassroots level,” he said. He further declared that the pilot project in 11 PACSs was completed and 11 godowns were being inaugurated today. He said that the godowns built under this scheme will be small, but will have racks, computerised systems and all the means required for modern farming. He said that these PACS-linked godowns will also have drones, tractors, harvesting machines and fertiliser spraying machines. All these facilities will be available to farmers on a rental basis and it will make PACSs more viable and farming modern in the coming days. He said there was a need to keep the cooperative sector relevant, modernise it and also make it transparent.
In India, storage capacity with regards to food grain production is only 47%, while all over the world, the storage capacity is more than the production, and due to this, when the prices go down, the farmer can use the storage capacity to store his produce and easily get a good price for the same. In the USA it is 161%, Brazil 149%, Canada 130% and China 107%. Shah pointed out that earlier this facility was not available in India and the Food Corporation of India had to shoulder this whole burden. “Now thousands of PACSs will increase storage capacity through which we will achieve 100% storage capacity before 2027 and this will be done through the cooperative sector,” he said.
– global bihari bureau
