Government Plans To Digitise 65,000 Cooperative Societies By March 2024, Says NABARD Chairman

The chairman stated that NABARD is working towards developing a data warehouse for cooperatives and the rural sector, and it should be ready in nearly six months.

NABARD is working towards sensitising Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) to pay attention to gender equality while distributing credit, the chairman added.

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The government plans to computerise about 65,000 cooperative societies by the end of the current fiscal year, NABARD Chairman Shaji K V said on Wednesday. He further said that this measure will be undertaken to help improve transparency and efficiency in such cooperatives. 

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has been appointed as the project manager for the digitalisation of cooperative societies under the supervision and directions of the National Level Monitoring and Implementation Committee and the Ministry of Cooperation. 

Speaking at a conference organised by Sa Dhan, the NABARD head said, “Close to 10,000 cooperative societies have already been digitised. We are targeting 65,000 societies to be digitised by March 2024,” as reported by PTI. He added, “We are trying to clean up by improving transparency and making them important value chain players through computerisation of these entities.”

The bank executive stated that NABARD is working towards developing a data warehouse for cooperatives and the rural sector, and it should be ready in nearly six months. “Once that is in place, it will be available for players to use data for their and borrowers' benefit,” he noted.

Talking about the regional disparities regarding microfinance exposure, Shaji said that it is more inclined towards the eastern and southern regions in the country, with these regions getting two-thirds of the microfinance exposure, while the rest of India including northern, central, and western regions accounting for only one-third of the exposure. 

“It raises the question, whether we are addressing regional disparity properly. If you extrapolate this data with GDP contribution or with the National Income contribution, then we can find certain inequality here,” he noted. 

Shaji further outlined that the southern region of the country has good banking penetration and therefore, enjoys a high credit-to-GDP ratio, unlike the northern and western regions, where priority sector lending is on the lower end despite the huge contribution made by the regions to national income. Additionally, he stated that NABARD is working towards sensitising Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) to pay attention to gender equality while distributing credit.