The Union Cooperation Ministry is working on a new central scheme to modernise and digitalise over 97,000 primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACs) spread across the country, with a budget outlay of around Rs 2,000-3000 crore over the next five years.
About
Primary agriculture cooperative societies (PACs) -- commonly known as agri-cooperative credit societies -- are village-level lending institutions based on cooperative principles.
They provide short and medium term loans to rural people to meet their financial requirements.
There are about 97,961 PACs across the country, out of which viable ones are about 65,000.
PACs are under the ambit of state government.
Digitalization of PACs
After digitalisation of PACs, banking procedures will get smooth and will benefit in auditing.
Besides, it will ensure the benefit of farm loans reaches the last mile because in a few states agri-credit is still disbursed through PACs.
Since PACs are under the ambit of state government, the scheme envisaged will be on a 60:40 basis for five
