Minister for Cooperation C.N. Balakrishnan said on Monday that primary agricultural cooperatives and cooperative banks would advance Rs. 2,500 crore to farmers in a year.
Announcing the programmes of the Department of Cooperation for one year at a press conference here, the Minister said that about 30,000 farmers would get zero-interest loans for paddy cultivation. The government would reimburse interest on such loans to the cooperatives. Besides, interest subsidies would be provided to 25,000 farmers without defaults.
The Minister said that the department would start 50 farmers' service centres to make seeds and fertilizers available to the farmers in time. Besides, 50 godowns would be built in rural areas with funding from the National Cooperative Development Corporation. The agriculture processing sector would be strengthened by modernising five existing units. In addition, six copra and paddy processing units would be set up.
Mr. Balakrishnan said that the government would extend share capital to 200 primary agricultural cooperatives proposed to be started within a year. Long term loans would be advanced by agricultural and rural development banks to entrepreneurs for starting 50 enterprises.
He announced that five new cooperative professional colleges would be started besides five new courses in existing colleges. An engineering college is proposed to be set up at Pathanapuram and a retail management institute at Idukki. Facilities and bed strength in various cooperative hospitals would be improved.
The Minister also announced plans to set up 50 new Triveni stores, 20 mobile Triveni stores, five floating Triveni stores, 25 Neethi medical stories and four Neethi medical warehouses under the State Cooperative Consumer Federation to check open market prices. Besides, 2,000 sales outlets, 20 consumer units and 5,000 fairs would be organised during festival seasons.
The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe and women cooperatives would be revived, addressing problems such as lack of working capital. Steps would also be taken to revive paddy processing cooperatives. Audit of 15,000 cooperatives would be completed in one year.
Mr. Balakrishnan said that 11 of the 17 schemes proposed under 100 days' action plan in the department and all the programmes proposed in the khadi sector had been completed. The proposed pharmacy college could not be started for want of building while five other schemes were in the process of implementation.
