Nabard Aims to Digitize 65,000 Cooperatives by March 2024

New Delhi, Nov 8 (PTI) Nabard Chairman Shaji K V on Wednesday said the government aims to computerise about 65,000 cooperative societies by March 2024 in order to improve transparency and efficiency of such cooperatives.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has been designated as project manager for computerisation of cooperative societies under the guidance and directions of the National Level Monitoring and Implementation Committee and Ministry of Cooperation.

"Close to 10,000 cooperative societies have already been digitised. We are targeting 65,000 societies to be digitised by March 2024," he said at a conference organised by Sa Dhan.

Observing that cooperatives have created lot of inefficiencies over the years, he said, "we are trying to clean up by improving transparency and making them important value chain players through computerisation of these entities."

Nabard is also building a data warehouse for cooperatives and the rural sector, he said, adding, it should be in place in about six months. Once that is in place, it will be available for players to use data for their and borrowers' benefit.

Pointing at the regional disparity with regard to microfinance exposure, Shaji said, it is skewed more towards East and South. Microfinance exposure in these two regions is about two-thirds, while the rest of India comprising North, Central and West has only one-third, he said.

"It raises the question, whether we are addressing regional disparity properly. If you extrapolate this data with GDP contribution or with the National Income contribution, then we can find certain inequality here," he said.

The southern region, which is good in banking penetration, has got a very high credit to GDP ratio whereas North and West, which contribute much to national income, are low on priority sector lending, he said adding, this needs to be corrected.

On gender equality, Shaji said, Nabard is sensitising Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) to keep this in mind while giving credit.