Best Lawyers in Chandigarh Finally, Cooperative Dept wakes up to e-revolution

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, August 3

In a long-awaited move, the Punjab State Cooperative Department has decided to computerise its operations.

The department has decided to follow the model adopted by Odisha which, last year, became the first state in the country to successfully digitise the working of its cooperative credit structure.

Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who led a high-level team to Odisha last week, said digitisation would ensure faster processing of agriculture loans as eligibility checks would be done in real-time.

“Computerisation of the Punjab State Cooperative Bank (PSCB) and its constituent 20 Central Cooperative Banks (CCB), which deliver short-term credit to farmers, and Punjab State Cooperative Agriculture Development Bank (PSCADB) and its constituent 84 Primary Agriculture Development Banks (PADB), which lend long-term loans, was long overdue. But before starting the process of digitising such a large entity on which the state’s agriculture economy is dependent, we thought it prudent to visit Odisha to study its model,” he added.

Randhawa’s team comprised Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Vikas Grag, MD, Punjab State Cooperative Bank, SK Batish, Chief Information Technology Officer PMS Malhi, senior IT officer Sanjay Gupta and consultant, Punjab State Cooperative Bank, KS Pandey. The team held elaborate discussions with Odisha Cooperative Minister Ranendra Pratap Swain.

Emphasis will also be laid on the computerised Core Banking System (CBS) which ensures accurate and error-free delivery of financial services to customers, thereby adding to the banks’ efficiency and performance.

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