SHIMLA- 22 January, 2025-Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri who met the Union Home Minister Amit Shah at New Delhi, today urged him to allocate adequate funds to the state of Himachal for various schemes in co-operative sector especially for computerization of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), state Programme Management Unit (PMU) and Institute of Cooperative Management (ICM) etc.

Sh. Agnihotri apprised that the state has already provided requisite land at Panjawar, Una and has provided a grant of rupees five crore for setting up of ICM, further requesting that Rs. 10 crore as grant-in-aid be provided to set up this state-of-the-art cooperative training institute i.e. ICM in the state.

Sh. Amit Shah stated that he was aware of the Cooperative Sector proposals and funds would be released soon to ensure the timely completion of the project.

The Union Minister assured that Center would accord all possible help to Himachal Pradesh as far as funding in Cooperative schemes was concerned. It was also discussed to provide funds for Opening of Mahila Cooperative Haats on Pilot basis in the State.

Sh. Agnihotri said that Himachal has made great strides in the computerization project. As many as 870 PACS were identified in first phase out of which 647 PACS have been made Go-Live. An amount of approx. Rs 18.57 crore has been spent on this. While in the second phase, 919 societies have been identified and digitization work is under progress.

The Union minister stated that very soon Ministry of Cooperation would convene a meeting of Central and State officers in this regard to thwart out all the thread bound issues.

Sh. Agnihotri apprised the Union Home Minister about the menace of Chitta in the State and the action taken in this regard by the State Government. Sh. Agnihotri stated that the State has adopted zero-tolerance policy towards corruption and drug menace. He said that FIR's have been registered against the drug kingpins and a massive hunt was on to nab few left outs.