The Budget announcement comes close on the heels of the Cabinet decision to set up three new cooperative societies to boost organic farming, seeds and exports to push up farm income. These cooperatives are expected to help realise the vision of “Sahakar Se Samriddhi” (prosperity through cooperatives).
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her Budget 2023-24 speech that a national cooperative database for country-wide mapping of cooperative societies will be created for better implementation of the proposed national policy on cooperatives. Further, Budget 2023-24 has announced slew of tax benefits for these cooperatives to ensure success of such coopertaives in ensuring an uninterrupted supply chain and income support to farmers.
“Setting up of cooperatives will ensure that there is no distress sale of the farm products and farmers get a better price for their produce,” Jayen Mehta, incharge managing director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF).
Around 8 lakh cooperative societies are officially recognised in India, mostly in the agricultural, banking, and housing industries with nearly two lakh for milk alone.
“A massive decentralised storage capacity will be set up to help farmers store their produce and realize remunerative prices through sale at appropriate times,” Sitharaman said in her Budget speech on Wednesday.
The government, through the ministry of cooperation, has been promoting cooperative-based economic development model. It has already initiated computerisation of 63,000 primary agricultural credit societies (PACS) with an investment of Rs 2,516 crore. Further, it has formulated model bye-laws for PACS enabling them to become multipurpose PACS.
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