Sahakar Pragya Programme: Key Facts

November 30, 2020

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare recently launched the Sahakar Pragya. The initiative will train the primary cooperative societies in the country. It holds 45 new training modules of National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC). It will enhance the training capacity of NCDC through a network of eighteen regional training centres.

About Sahakar Pragya

Under the Sahakar Pragya initiative, the 45 training modules are to be delivered at LINAC. LINAC is Laxman rao Inamdar National Academy for Cooperative Research and Development operating under NCDC.

These 45 training modules are to be supported by the following

NCDC

The NCDC was created to plan and promote programmes for processing, production, marketing, storage, import and export of agricultural produce. Apart from agricultural produce, NCDC also focuses on livestock, foodstuffs, industrial goods and services like healthcare, hospitals and education. The NCDC also provides financial assistance to Cooperative at all three tires,, primary, district and multi-state. The NCDC had earlier launched the Sahakar Coop Tube to involve youth in the Cooperative movement.

NCDC Schemes

The schemes implemented by NCDC are as follows

Ayushman Sahakar

It was launched to provide financial assistance to the cooperatives in the field of education, healthcare and hospitals. It will assist the promotion of AYUSH facilities launched by cooperative societies. It will also work to fulfil the objectives of National Health Policy. It will help the co-operative societies to participate in the National Digital Health Mission. The activities included under the scheme are creation, expansion, modernisation, repair, renovation of hospital, education and healthcare infrastructure.

Sahakar Mitra Scheme

Under the scheme, the NCDC will provide short term internship to young professionals in the areas of functioning of NCDC. With this, the manpower of NCDC will be boosted.

Yuva Sahakar

The scheme will encourage newly formed cooperative societies to come up with new innovative ideas. It mainly focuses on programmes such as Stand up India and Startup India. Basically, it will provide financial assistance to those cooperative societies that are coming up with innovative ideas.

Why are Cooperative Societies important?

The Cooperative societies act as a shield against exploitation of farmers by the traders. They minimize the risks in agriculture. There are more than 8.5 lakh cooperative sector in India supporting 290 million members in the country. 94% of farmers in the country are members of any one of the cooperative societies.

Background

There are 2.53 lakh Gram Panchayats in the country. Through these Gram Panchayat, the Government of India is ensuring that every household has access to basic amenities such as electricity, toilets, water, cooking gas, etc.

There are 86% small farmers in India. These farmers cannot invest in farming on their own. Therefore, the Government of India is developing facilities such as irrigation, high yielding variety seeds, cold storage at village level for these farmers. This will help to prevent farmers from selling their produce at low prices.

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