PM launches 'world's largest agri storage plan'; Rs 1.25 lakh cr outlay over 5 years

• The Prime Minister announced a plan to set up the “world’s largest grain storage plan in the cooperative sector.

Key Highlights

• Inaugurating a pilot project being undertaken in 11 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) in 11 states under the largest grain storage plan
• This will enable farmers to store their produce and sell it at the right time according to their own needs.
• This will also help them to avail loans from banks.
• Further, he inaugurated a project for computerisation in 18,000 PACS across the country, aligning farming with cutting edge technology and shifting to fully digital payments.
• The vision of Sahakar se Samriddhi (prosperity through cooperatives) is to rejuvenate the cooperative sector and empower small and marginal farmers.
• His government had reduced minimum alternate tax on cooperative societies –
  • Bringing it at par with the corporate sector – and raised the slab for tax to be deducted at source to income above Rs 3 crore
• The new storage plan aims to add another 700 lakh tonnes capacity over the next five years through cooperatives, in effect, double the existing capacity.
• The creation of a full-fledged Ministry of Cooperation and routing of non-basmati rice and sugar exports on government account through the newly-registered National Cooperative Exports Ltd
  • Points to the importance the government is placing on cooperatives.

Prelims Takeaway

• Sahakar se Samriddhi
• largest grain storage plan