New Delhi: In a major push to transform India's dairy cooperative sector, Union Minister Amit Shah on Thursday unveiled 'White Revolution 2.0', a comprehensive initiative aimed at empowering women farmers and creating job opportunities.
The programme focuses on four key areas - empowering women farmers, enhancing local milk production, strengthening dairy infrastructure, and boosting dairy exports.
The programme is one of the three initiatives undertaken in the first 100 days of the Modi government's third term.
"Maximum women are engaged in the dairy sector, with some generating business worth Rs 60,000 crore in Gujarat alone. This new initiative will focus on empowering women and further strengthening the fight against malnutrition," Shah said while addressing the gathering.
The minister also launched the nationwide rollout of RuPay Kisan Credit Cards for dairy farmers and the installation of micro-ATMs at dairy cooperative societies. Additionally, he released standard operating procedures for the computerisation of 67,930 Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS).
Under White Revolution 2.0, the government aims to increase milk procurement by dairy cooperative societies by 50 per cent over the next five years.
The plan involves setting up and strengthening 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.
Shah assured full budgetary support for the programme, stating, "Many have apprehensions about whether White Revolution 2.0 will get sufficient budgetary support. I assure full budget support for this as it is a top priority sector for the government."
The minister also announced the nationwide expansion of the 'Cooperation among Cooperatives' initiative, which was successfully piloted in Gujarat.
This programme will provide interest-free cash credit to dairy farmers through RuPay-Kisan Credit Cards and distribute micro-ATMs to dairy cooperative societies, bringing banking services to farmers' doorsteps.
Emphasising the need for reforms in the cooperative sector, Shah said, "While there were reforms in different sectors in the country in the past 70 years, timely reforms were not undertaken in the cooperative sector. The purpose behind establishing a separate cooperation ministry was to revive and modernise the cooperative sector and create job opportunities."
With these initiatives, the government aims to strengthen and expand the cooperative sector, potentially benefiting about 13 crore farmers across the country.