Announcing that the Union government plans to establish Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) in every panchayat by 2029, Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah Sunday said India’s cooperative sector cannot be strengthened unless the benefits of the changes in this sector reach the grassroots level.

Addressing a ‘Maha Sammelan’ on the “Role of Cooperatives in Building a Viksit Bharat”, organised by Gujarat State Cooperative Federation in Ahmedabad, he said,” We must strive to bring awareness, training, and transparency to all types of cooperative institutions”.

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The minister, according to a press release, said,” It is the responsibility of all of us to expand the cooperative movement to every state and district.”

Additionally, the condition of primary cooperative societies in every state should improve, district-level institutions should be strengthened, and through them, the cooperative framework at the state and national levels should also be reinforced, Shah observed.

The minister said that under the central government initiative started in 2021, two guiding principles – ‘Sahkar se Samriddhi’ and ‘The Role of Cooperation in Viksit Bharat’ – were presented to the nation.

The United Nations will celebrate the year of 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives. The word cooperative is as relevant today for the whole world as it was in the year of 1900, the minister said.

He further stated that a fourth tier has been added to the long-standing global three-tier cooperative structure, emphasising that it is essential to expand cooperation across the entire country by strengthening national institutions related to every cooperative activity, state-level cooperative institutions, district-level institutions, and primary cooperative societies in every sector.

”We must utilise the International Year of Cooperatives to achieve this,” the minister stressed.

Talking about the campaign, Shah said that it’s based on three pillars – integrating cooperation into the mainstream of governance, bringing transparency and authenticity to the cooperative movement through technology, and accelerating the process of connecting more and more citizens with the cooperative movement.

He further emphasised that the cooperative framework cannot be strengthened unless Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) are strengthened. That is why the Modi government has decided to establish a PACS in every ‘panchayat’ of the country by 2029.

Under this decision, 2 lakh new and dairies will be registered.

He further said that the government has integrated around 22 different activities with PACS. Shah also mentioned that the government will soon introduce a policy for the settlement of PACS that have gone into liquidation, as well as for the establishment of new PACS.

The minister said: ”We need to strengthen the cooperative structure by using the International Cooperative Year 2025 to spread awareness among all the people, setting new dimensions of transparency and conducting recruitments.”

Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and many other prominent personalities were present on the occasion.