NCDC TO EXTEND RS. 735 CRORE ASSISTANCE
TO COOPERATIVES
The National Cooperative
Development Corporation (NCDC) will extend an assistance of Rs.
735 crore to cooperatives in various sectors during the year 2003-04.
The Action Plan of NCDC for the next financial year was approved
at a meeting of its General Council chaired by the Agriculture
Minister Shri Ajit Singh here today. Addressing the General Council
Shri Ajit Singh said cooperatives have to be financially strengthened
to enable them to face the challenges of liberalisation. He said
the National Policy on Cooperatives and legislative initiatives
of various states would ensure a level playing field for the cooperatives.
He emphasised the need to increase value addition in agriculture
from the present 7% to 30% and processing from the present 2 %
to 10 % to ensure proper returns to the producer. The Minister
urged the NCDC to focus on efficiency upgradation and institutional
development of cooperatives
The Minister of State
for Agriculture Shri Hukumdeo Narayan Yadav said that NCDC could
now extend its operations to certain services like water conservation,
irrigation, agro-insurance, rural sanitation, animal health etc.
following the amendments to NCDC Act in September last year. NCDC
could now go for direct financing of cooperatives instead of routing
through the State Governments .
The Managing Director
of NCDC Shri Dinesh Roy said the non-performing assets of the
corporation were at a low level of 7.2 % which compared well with
other banks and financial institutions. He said that NCDC since
its inception in 1963 has extended an assistance of Rs. 6582 crores
for agro processing (48%), supply of marketing and inputs (15%)
weaker section programmes, like fisheries, dairy, poultry, handlooms
etc. (13%), storage including cold storage (12%) and integrated
cooperative development projects (9%). NCDC mandated with promotion,
strengthening and development of cooperatives for augmenting the
incomes of rural people has increased its disbursement from Rs.
2.36 cores per year in its formative year to Rs.735 crore per
year at present.
During the next financial
year NCDC will extend financial assistance of Rs.356.58 crore
to cooperatives in processing sector, Rs.119.61 crores for weaker
sections cooperatives, Rs.105 crore for marketing cooperatives,
Rs. 92 crore for integrated cooperative development projects,
Rs.48 crore for storage projects and Rs. 8 crore for consumer
cooperatives.
