New Delhi. Taking a major step towards transforming India’s dairy cooperative sector, Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Thursday launched ‘White Revolution 2.0’. It is being considered a comprehensive initiative aimed at empowering women farmers and creating employment opportunities.
The program focuses on four major areas. This includes empowering women farmers, increasing local milk production, strengthening dairy infrastructure and promoting dairy exports. This program is one of the three initiatives launched in the first 100 days of the third term of the Narendra Modi government.
Addressing the gathering, Shah said, “The dairy sector is mostly engaged in women, with some of them doing a business of Rs 60,000 crore in Gujarat alone. This new initiative will focus on empowering women and further strengthening the fight against malnutrition.” The minister also launched the launch of RuPay Kisan Credit Card for dairy farmers across the country and installation of micro-ATMs in dairy cooperatives. Additionally, he released standard operating procedures (SOPs) for computerization of 67,930 primary agricultural credit societies (PACS). Under White Revolution 2.0, the government aims to increase milk procurement by dairy cooperatives by 50 per cent in the next five years.
The scheme involves setting up and strengthening of 1,00,000 new and existing district cooperative societies, multi-purpose district cooperative societies and multi-purpose PACS, which will be linked to milk routes with necessary infrastructure. Initially, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) will fund the initiative from its own resources, providing Rs 40,000 per M-PACS to 1,000 M-PACS.
Assuring full budgetary support for the programme, Shah said, “Many people are apprehensive about whether White Revolution 2.0 will get adequate budgetary support or not. I assure full budgetary support for it, as it is a top priority area for the government.” The minister also announced the nationwide expansion of the ‘Cooperation among Cooperatives’ initiative, which was successfully run in Gujarat.
Under this program, dairy farmers will be provided interest-free cash loans through RuPay-Kisan Credit Card and dairy cooperatives will be given micro-ATMs, which will bring banking services to the doorstep of farmers. Explaining the need for reforms in the cooperative sector, Shah said, “In the last 70 years, there have been reforms in various sectors in the country, but timely reforms were not done in the cooperative sector. The objective behind the establishment of a separate cooperative ministry was to revive and modernize the cooperative sector and create employment opportunities.” With these initiatives, the government aims to strengthen and expand the cooperative sector, which can benefit about 13 crore farmers across the country.