DW BUREAU / Shimla

Himachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri on Wednesday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and requested a Rs 10 crore grant-in-aid to set up a state-of-the-art cooperative training institute, an officials statement said. He urged Shah to allocate adequate funds to the state for various schemes in the cooperative sector especially for the computerization of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), the State Programme Management Unit (PMU) and the Institute of Cooperative Management (ICM).

Agnihotri apprised Shah that the state has already provided requisite land at Panjawar, Una and has provided a grant of Rs 5 crore for setting up of ICM and requested Rs 10 crore as grant-in-aid to set up this state-of-the-art cooperative training institute, the statement read.

Shah said that he was aware of the Cooperative Sector proposals and funds would be released soon to ensure the timely completion of the project. The Union Minister assured that the Centre would accord all possible help to Himachal Pradesh as far as funding in Cooperative schemes was concerned. They also discussed providing funds for the Opening of Mahila Cooperative Haats on a pilot basis, the statement added.

Agnihotri said that Himachal has made great strides in the computerization project. As many as 870 PACS were identified in the first phase out of which 647 PACS have been made Go-Live.

An amount of Rs 18.57 crore (approx) has been spent on this. In the second phase, 919 societies have been identified and digitisation work is in progress, he added.

The Union Minister said that soon the Ministry of Cooperation would convene a meeting of Central and state officers to thwart all the issues.

He said that the state has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and drug menace. He added that FIRs have been registered against the drug kingpins and a massive hunt was on to nab the accused.

(editor@dailyworld.in)