Himachal Deputy CM meets Amit Shah, seeks funding for cooperative sector

Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri today urged the Centre for allocating adequate funds to the state of Himachal for various schemes in the cooperative sector.

Agnihotri today met Union Home Minister Amit Shah at New Delhi seeking liberal funds for computerisation of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), state Programme Management Unit (PMU) and the Institute of Cooperative Management (ICM).

He apprised the Union minister that the state has already provided Rs 5 crore and the land for the setting up of the ICM at Panjawar in Una.

He further requested the Union Minister to provide Rs 10 crore as grant-in-aid for the setting up of this state-of-the-art cooperative training institute i.e. ICM in the state. The Union minister stated that the Ministry of Cooperation would soon convene a meeting of Central and state officers to discuss all important issues.

He also assured that Centre would accord all possible help to Himachal for funding of the Cooperative schemes.

Agnihotri said Himachal has made great strides in the computerisation project. As many as 870 PACS have been identified in the first phase out of which 647 have been made Go-Live. An amount of Rs 18.57 crore has been spent on this while in the second phase, 919 societies have been identified and digitization work is under progress, he added.

The Deputy CM apprised the Union Home Minister about the drug menace in the state and the action taken in this regard by the state government.

He said the state has adopted zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and drug menace and FIRs have been registered against the kingpins and those involved in this illegal menace.