Govt to upgrade PACS to extend banking services

Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government has taken up a major project of upgrading Primary Agriculture Cooperative Sectors (PACS) to extend banking service to the rural populace in the state.

The work has been taken up based on the recommendations of the State Level Monitoring Committee for Cooperative Sector.

There are around 2,600 deposit mobilising PACS and the same will be developed as customer service points for banking facilities by computerising them and connecting them to core banking solution of cooperative banks.

The work to upgrade 1,133 PACS to banks has already been initiated and a target has been set to complete upgradation of all the PACS by the end of the 2019-20 financial year.

The committee, under the chairmanship of the state's Chief Secretary, has also recommended that district and state cooperative banks should open bank branches in the Gram Panchayats with no banking facility.

It may be mentioned that steps have already been taken to install micro-ATMs in all the PACS for the convenience of customers. With Chief Secretary Malay De as its chairman, top brass of Finance, Cooperation, Panchayats and Rural Development departments are members of the State Level Monitoring Committee for Cooperative Sector.

It may be recalled that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had repeatedly taken digs at the Centre earlier, as there are still several areas in the rural parts of the state where people need to travel miles to reach a bank. Now, the step of upgrading the PACS has been taken to ensure that people in every part of the state can avail banking facility. The state government has also decided to give ad-hoc grant to all employees of cooperatives and the amount of the grant is to be raised. At present, 7,487 employees of cooperatives are getting ad-hoc grant of Rs 1,000 per month. There are 1,327 more such employees, who should also be getting the ad-hoc grant. It will now be raised to Rs 2,000 per month. At the same time, the employees will also be brought under the Sasthyasathi project of the state government. It has also accepted the recommendation of the committee of not initiating preparation of the Annual Confidential Report (ACR) of cooperative inspectors, from the level of Block Development Officers (BDOs).

The state government has also taken necessary steps, so that the audit of all the cooperative bodies is carried out and corrective measures are taken immediately, if needed. The entire matter may also be sent to the state Finance Department.