Multistate export house in next 2 months: Shah

The Central government is going to set up a multistate export house that will enable cooperatives to brand and export items, said Cooperatives Minister Amit Shah, as per a statement released by Ministry of Cooperation on Thursday.
Inaugurating a two-day National Conference of State Cooperation Ministers in New Delhi, Shah said, “Modi govt is going to set up a multistate export house which will export Khadi products, handicrafts and agriculture products to the worldwide market.”
“In the next 2 months, we will form a multi-state cooperative for the marketing and certification of organic products and seed culture,” he said.
Shah said the government wants to bring a positive change in the lives of crores of poor of the country by making the cooperative sector a strong pillar of the economy.
Shah also said that the cooperative sector can play an important role in making India self-reliant and ensure the economic prosperity of 70 crore poor people.
Shah said, currently there are 65 thousand active Primary Agricultural Credit Societies PACS in the country. He said, Government has decided to establish 3 lakh PACS in the next 5 years.
Shah said, defunct PACS should be liquidised as soon as possible, so that new PACS can be built.
The minister further said “We cannot think of any sector’s development without an authentic database, so Ministry of Cooperation is going to create a national database of cooperative sector.”
“The cooperative sector should be a major contributor to PM Modi’s vision of a $5 trillion economy and cooperative sector should become a major part of the Indian economy in the next 100 years,” he added.
The Cooperation Minister said that equal development of cooperative sector will be ensured by considering every state equally in the new cooperative policy.
“It is time for the cooperative sector to once again earn everyone’s trust by empowering itself according to the needs of the times,” he said.
Shah added, “Along with mass production, production by the masses is also very important for the development of our economy and this can be possible only through the cooperative model.”
He said, the policy’s focus area will be – free registration, computerization and democratic elections. Shah said, focus will also be on ensuring active membership, professionalism in leadership and transparency, being responsible and answerable and all the discussions are held with the stakeholders.
The Central government is also formulating a policy idea that along with short term finance PACS should also be involved in medium and long-term financing.