Punjab Cooperation Minister, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on Wednesday called upon Union Agriculture Minister Narinder Tomar at New Delhi and took up the issues pertaining to the strengthening of Sugarfed sector aimed at the welfare of the sugarcane farmers.
In a statement, an official spokesperson said Randhawa raised the demand regarding computerisation of all the primary agricultural cooperative societies which the Union Minister assured to consider from the next financial year.
He also appealed to the Union Minister that giving priority to the sugar sector, special funds should be provided by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) for the strengthening as well as renovation of the sugar mills of the State.
Randhawa said that given the tremendous potential of the sugarcane cultivation in the Doaba region, sugar mills at Gurdaspur, Batala and Jalandhar be upgraded. Special funds be given by the NCDC for research and development of sugarcane cultivation.
Taking up another issue, the Punjab minister said that the state falls in the developed cooperative sectors of the country in the matter of classification done on the basis of all cooperative sector institutions which is why the State gets less subsidy pertaining to the sector. He also said that Cooperative Banks, Milkfed, Markfed institutions are working in an absolutely fine manner which explains why Sugarfed doesn't gets requisite subsidy.