Ministry of Cooperation receives a budgetary allocation of Rs 900 crore

The Ministry of Cooperation has received a budgetary allocation of ₹900 crore, with a capital outlay of ₹11 crore for setting up a new secretariat. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman reduced the minimum alternate tax from 18.5% to 15% and surcharge from 12% to 7% for cooperatives with income between ₹1 crore and ₹10 crore in the budget.

The ministry proposes to convert Vaikunthlal Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (Vamnicom) into an independent institution. For digitisation of Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (Pacs), ₹350 crore has been allocated. Computerisation of 63,000 Pacs is expected to lead to an increase in efficiency, profitability, transparency and accountability. The budget earmarked ₹274 crore for an umbrella scheme to develop cooperatives by, "providing them necessary support in terms of finance, technology and infrastructure to transform them into successful entities".

The funds will be used for recapitalisation of Pacs, revival of defunct ones, seed money for new and transformation of Pacs into multi-role cooperatives on the lines of Farmer Producer Organisations, assistance to cooperative societies in branding, marketing and trade, capital subsidy for creation of basic infrastructure and creation of a national database on cooperative societies.


A cooperative credit guarantee fund has been created with an allocation of ₹1 crore. The scheme aims to provide credit guarantee on loans of Pacs and other primary cooperative societies. To promote research in the field of cooperatives, the budget has allocated ₹30 crore for introducing cooperative education as a course curriculum and as an independent degree or diploma courses in schools and universities. The cooperation department in the agriculture ministry was made a separate ministry last July and home minister Amit Shah was given charge of it.