The Centre Thursday approved a proposal to provide a grant in aid of Rs 2,000 crore to the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) over a period of four years till 2028-29. The move will enable the NCDC to provide loans to cooperatives either through the state governments or directly.
The Cabinet also approved a Rs 1,000 crore budget for setting up 50 multi-product food irradiation units.
As per an official statement, the source of finance of Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 500 crore each year from Fiscal Year 2025-26 to 2028-29) grant to NCDC shall be through budgetary support from the Centre.
As per an official statement, “On the basis of grant in aid of Rs 2,000 crore to NCDC from FY 2025-26 to FY 2028-29, NCDC will be able to raise Rs 20,000 crore from open market over a span of four years.
“These funds will be utilized by NCDC for granting loans to Cooperatives for setting up new projects/ expansion of plants and loans for meeting the working capital requirements.”
“Approximately 2.9 crore members of 13,288 Cooperative societies of various sectors like Dairy, Livestock, Fisheries, Sugar, Textile, Food Processing, Storage and Cold Storage; Labour and Women-led cooperatives across the country are likely to get benefitted,” it added.
On implementation strategy and targets of the decision, the statement said that the NCDC will be the executing agency for this scheme for the purpose of disbursement, follow-up, monitoring of implementation of the project, and recovery of loans disbursed out of the fund.
“NCDC will provide loans to cooperatives either through state government or directly, as per NCDC guidelines. Cooperatives, which are meeting the criteria of direct funding guidelines of NCDC would be considered for financial assistance directly against admissible security or state government guarantee,” the statement further said.
“NCDC will provide loans to cooperatives, long-term credit for setting up/ modernization/ technology upgradation/ expansion of project facilities for various sectors and working capital to run their businesses efficiently and profitably,” it said.
In a separate decision, the Cabinet also approved an additional outlay of Rs 1,920 crore for the ongoing ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana’ (PMKSY) during the 15th Finance Commission Cycle (FCC) (2021-22 to 2025-26). With this move, the overall outlay of the PMKSY will be Rs 6,520 crore.
“Approval includes (i) Rs 1000 crore to support setting up of 50 Multi Product Food Irradiation Units under the component scheme-Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure (ICCVAI) and 100 Food Testing Labs (FTLs) with NABL accreditation under the component scheme – Food Safety and Quality Assurance Infrastructure (FSQAI) of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY), in alignment with the budget announcement and (ii) Rs 920 crore, for sanctioning projects under various component schemes of PMKSY during the 15th FCC,” as per an official statement released after the Cabinet meeting.
“The implementation of the proposed 50 multi-product food irradiation units is expected to create total preservation capacity ranging from 20 to 30 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) per annum, based on the type of food products irradiated under these units,” it said.
“The setting up of the proposed 100 NABL-accredited food testing laboratories under private sector will lead to the development of advanced infrastructure for testing food sam
