Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah will launch the Computerization project of Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (ARDBs) and the Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCSs) of all States and Union Territories in New Delhi on January 30, 2024. This program is being organized by the Ministry of Cooperation, in collaboration with the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and guidance of Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah, the Ministry of Cooperation is committed to realizing the vision of “Sahkaar Se Samriddhi” and making crores of farmers prosperous. The Computerization of ARDB and RCS offices of all States and Union Territories is one of the several important steps taken by the Ministry of Cooperation towards realizing Prime Minister Modi’s vision of “Sahkar Se Samriddhi”. The project, under the aegis of the Ministry of Cooperation, shows the commitment of the Modi government to modernize the cooperative sector and enhance efficiency by bringing the entire cooperative ecosystem on a digital platform.
The Computerization Project of Agricultural and Rural Development Banks (ARDBs) aims at computerizing 1851 units of ARDBs located in 13 States/UTs and link them with NABARD through a Common National Software. This initiative of the Ministry of Cooperation will increase the operational efficiency, accountability and transparency in ARDB by standardizing business procedures through Common Accounting System (CAS) and Management Information System (MIS). Furthermore, the initiative aims at reducing transaction costs, facilitate loan distribution to farmers and enable real time data access for better monitoring and assessment of schemes. This will benefit small and marginal farmers, connected with ARDBs for credit and related services through Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACSs) at the grassroots level.
Under the second major initiative of the Ministry of Cooperation, yje aim is Computerization of offices of the Registrar of Cooperative Societies (RCS) in all States and Union Territories, motivating RCS offices for paperless functioningand to implement an IT-oriented workflow in accordance with the Cooperative Acts and Regulations of the States and Union Territories. Along with this, its targets also include better efficiency, accountability and transparency in RCS offices, setting up analytics and MIS and ensuring linkage with the national database.
As part of the major initiatives of the Ministry of Cooperation, the Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACSs) across the country are being computerized and linked to NABARD through a Common National Software. The PACSs are also being enabled to start digital services by taking them onboard as Common Service Centers (CSCs). So far more than 50,000 PACSs have been onboarded as CSCs and over 30,000 have already started providing services. In addition to this, the Ministry of Cooperation has set up a new National Cooperative Database containing data of more than 8 lakh cooperative societies and this database will be launched soon and made available to all stakeholders.
More than 1200 participants will attend Tuesday’s event, including senior officials of all states and union territories, secretaries of cooperative departments and Registrars of Cooperative Societies, Presidents of all State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (SCARDBs), representatives of Primary Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (PCARDBs) and ARDB units.
