Cooperatives in J&K giving new impetus to women, youth entrepreneurship

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 28: The J&K administration is making efforts to facilitate development of new women and youth cooperatives by providing them solid support system to flourish.
Government aims to increase the number of Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies by providing much-needed support to the people in every Panchayat. This will substantially increase the credit lending in agriculture and allied sectors, thereby benefits will also flow to small and marginal farmers.
In order to truly realize the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Sahkar se Samriddhi’, Cooperatives in J&K focus on agri-marketing, food processing, branding, supply of seeds and other innovative activities in dairy and handicrafts.
In a major bid to strengthen cooperatives, highest 66 new FPOs were registered in 2020-21 besides 306 cooperatives were registered in same year.
As per the statistics of the department, 138 cooperative societies were revived and made functional.
Notably for the first time Super Bazars were brought on GeM portal, computerised bills were introduced in Super Bazars for greater accountability and five Super Bazars have been taken up for modernisation.
To infuse new life in Cooperative banks, Government provided highest capital infusion of Rs 366.91 cr in three district Central cooperative banks.
Notably, in our UT, more than 63,000 self-help groups are changing the lives of 5.25 lakh women. Government has resolved that 18,000 new self-help groups will be formed so that their potential gets its due place in the economy and development. With the help of cooperatives, new impetus to entrepreneurial women’s organizations is being provided.