Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on Saturday announced that the Union government will soon bring a National Cooperative Policy.

“The Union Ministry of Cooperation has taken many important steps for the cooperative sector,” Shah said while addressing the ‘Sahkar se Samriddhi’ (Prosperity through Cooperation) programme organised on the occasion of 102nd International Day of Cooperatives in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Many dignitaries including Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, and Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation were present on the occasion.

Addressing the programme, Shah said the government has set a target that there should not be any state or district in the country where there is not a viable district cooperative bank and a viable district milk producer union.

He said only by doing this “we will be able to expand the cooperative sector and make every rural and poor person prosperous”.

“For this we have envisioned a Cooperative Panchayat.” Shah said.

The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said even today there are 2 lakh panchayats in the country where there is not a single cooperative institution. He said, “We have set a target that in the next 5 years we will work to create multipurpose Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) in these two lakh panchayats.”

Shah said the Union government has also made model bylaws for PACS and despite PACS being a state subject, every state from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Assam to Dwarka has accepted these model bylaws.

He said the Union government has also worked towards making PACS multi-purpose and today, out of 65,000 functional PACS in the country, 48,000 have taken initiatives towards becoming viable by adding some new activity to themselves.

Shah said the central government has also formed three multi-state cooperative institutions – Organic Committee, Export Committee and Seed Committee – through which the path has been paved to enrich the lives of farmers.

He said 1100 new Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) have been formed in the country, more than 1 lakh PACS have accepted the new bylaws and now with the issuance of bonds worth Rs 2000 crore to National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), this institution will be able to work for the welfare of more cooperative institutions.

“Along with this, the urban cooperative banks have got the target of opening new branches, the limit of personal housing loan given by cooperative banks has been doubled, both the income tax benefits and the limit of cash withdrawal have been increased and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, by enacting a law, has done the work of cancelling the income tax liability of Rs 15000 crore of sugar cooperative mills. The IT liability was pending for many years,” Shah said.

The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said today the Government of Gujarat has taken a very important decision and announced a subsidy of 50 percent on Nano-Urea and Nano-DAP.

He thanked the Gujarat government for the decision and said farmers need to spray Nano-Urea only once and that there is no need to add Urea to the fields later during the crop’s growth.

Shah said spraying Nano-Urea and Nano-DAP in the field is sufficient for increased production and will also save the soil. He said the Modi government has made them cheaper and farmers should use them.