Himachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri has urged the Centre to provide liberal funding for the cooperative sector in the state.
He met the Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Wednesday and urged him to allocate adequate funds to the state of Himachal for various schemes in the cooperative sector especially for the computerization of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), state Programme Management Unit (PMU) and Institute of Cooperative Management (ICM).
Agnihotri apprised that the state has already provided requisite land at Panjawar, Una and has provided a grant of Rs five crore for setting up of ICM, further requesting that Rs. 10 crore as grant-in-aid be provided to set up this state-of-the-art cooperative training institute in the state.
Mr Shah stated that he was aware of the co-operative sector proposals and funds would be released soon to ensure the timely completion of the project.
The Union Minister also assured that the Centre would accord all possible help to HP as far as funding in Cooperative schemes was concerned.
It was also discussed to provide funds for the opening of Mahila Cooperative Haats on a Pilot basis in the state.
Agnihotri said that Himachal has made great strides in the computerization project.
“As many as 870 PACS were identified in the first phase out of which 647 PACS have been made Go-Live. An amount of about Rs 18.57 crore has been spent on this. While in the second phase, 919 societies have been identified and digitization work is in progress.
The Union minister stated that very soon Ministry of Cooperation would convene a meeting of Central and State officers in this regard to thwart all the thread-bound issues.
The Dy CM apprised the Union Home Minister about the menace of Chitta in the state and the action taken in this regard by the state government
The state has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and drug menace, he said, adding that FIRs have been registered against the drug kingpins and a massive hunt was on to nab a few leftouts.