Karnataka Govt prepares to digitise primary agricultural cooperative societies

In an effort to increase transparency in farmers’ loan disbursal and recoveries, the state government will take up the digitisation of Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS). Its implementation process for which will begin in March.

A recent meeting was held with Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai in this regard.

The government is in the process of finalising a company for software development and the digitisation is expected to be completed within a year, cooperation minister ST Somashekar told DH.

The state government’s share will come up to Rs 50 crore, while the rest of the funds will be received from the Centre, Apex and DCC Banks.

There are about 5,400 PACS in the state. Their digitisation is a centrally-sponsored scheme. The Centre will chip in 60%. Of the remaining 40%, the state government will chip in 20%, while the Apex Bank will pay 10% and the DCC Banks will pay 10%.

This decision was taken in a recent meeting involving the DCC, Apex Banks and the co-operation department officials, Somashekar said.

While the state government’s share works out to be Rs 50 crore, the Apex Bank and DCC Banks will each pool in Rs 25 crore. It is estimated that the digitisation process per co-operative society will cost Rs 4.3 lakh.

The Centre has asked the state government to complete the digitisation process in three years, in a staggered manner. However, Bommai has directed the state to take it up in one shot and complete the process in one year. The state will soon write to the Centre conveying the same and seek funds.

A senior official in the cooperation department told DH that the digitisation of all the primary agriculture credit cooperative societies would help increase transparency in both loan disbursal and recovery. With the software in place, data of all PACS will be linked with that of DCC Banks and the Apex Bank. All the transactions will go online, with accounts being updated every day.

“Auditing will become easy with all the data available online for loan disbursal, recoveries and even for transfer of money from DCC Banks to PACS,” an official explained. Also from an administrative point of view, officials at the state level can monitor the data of loans whenever they want, instead of waiting for the DCC Banks to update the information to them, the official added.

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