The Ministry of Cooperation has expanded the Central Sector Project for Computerization of PACS, a scheme that aims to bring local cooperative credit institutions onto a common digital platform. The same Union government reply also says that a new plan has been approved to establish multipurpose PACS, dairy and fisheries cooperatives across panchayats and villages over the next five years.

What happened now

According to the Union government, the PACS computerisation project was launched in 2022. The initial approval covered 63,000 functional PACS with a financial outlay of ₹2,516 crore. The outlay has now been increased to ₹2,925.39 crore, and coverage has been widened to 79,630 PACS.

The Union government has said that the computerisation effort uses an ERP-based common national software and connects PACS with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) through State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) and District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs). The stated purpose is to strengthen the operational capacity of PACS and make cooperative banking systems more connected.

Background and earlier position

PACS are the grassroots layer of the short-term cooperative credit structure in rural India. They matter because they are often the first institutional touchpoint for farm credit, input support and related rural financial services. The current push builds on a broader Union government emphasis on cooperative-sector digitisation and on the idea of Sahakar-se-Samriddhi.

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