Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday directed the officers to explore the possibility of opening HARCO Bank branches in every district of the state.
Presiding over the state level review meeting of Haryana State Co-operative Apex Bank (HARCO) here, he said, "If the rules have to be amended for this, then it should be done. Presently HARCO Bank has two branches in Chandigarh and Panchkula, whereas this bank controls the branches of District Central Co-operative Bank", said Khattar.
The CM was apprised that PACS is not directly linked with HARCO Bank and there are about 700 PACS in the state, which is maintained at the village level.
Additional Chief Secretary, Finance Department, T.V.S N Prasad said the entire work in Kanauli PACS of Panchkula district has been computerized and the process of computerizing 62 more PACS is going on. This work will be completed by November 30, this year he said. Khattar said that the salary of the employees of PACS should also be centralized and arrangements should be made by the government.
To end the monopoly on PACS, on similar lines of this, Village Agricultural Primary Co-operative Societies (VACS) should be formed at the village level by talking to the educated young farmers in the villages and their registration should be done under the Co-operative Societies Registration Act and farmers only should Operate these VACS, said Khattar.
The Chief Minister said crop loans should be made available to the farmers at the time of sowing and that too in three installments when they need to pay wages along with seeds, tillage and fertilizers to prepare the field. Debt recovery should be linked to the harvesting season so that farmers can sell their crops and repay the loan on time. Farmers who repay on time will be given an incentive of one percent, he said.