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The Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Ajit Singh, along with Dr M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman, MSSRF, at a seminar in Chennai on Monday.

CHENNAI, June 3

THE Centre will soon convene a meeting of the State Ministers for co-operatives to impress upon the need for institutional and policy reforms in the sector, according to the Union Minister for Agriculture, Mr Ajit Singh.

Addressing reporters at a consultative meeting on agro-processing at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Mr Singh said his Ministry has sought a corpus of Rs 8,000 crore from the Union Government, as recommended by the Kapur Committee, to provide funds for the States for reforming the co-operative sector.

The Centre would provide 60 per cent funding, if the State Government was willing to raise 40 per cent for carrying out institutional reforms in the co-operative sector.

Parliament recently passed a model law for co-operatives.

Already institutional reforms have been instituted in multi-state co-operatives to avoid political interventions. This included preventing ministers from holding office in co-operatives and expulsion of a member if he does not attend the meetings of the body.

However, Mr Singh said there were limits to which the Central Government could go, since ultimately the matter was a State subject. When asked what he would do if the State Governments did not show interest in taking the Central assistance, he said in a democracy only thing that was possible for him was to lobby.

According to him, the problem of 60 million tonnes of foodgrains in the Food Corporation of India godowns would not have happened if there was good distribution system. To tackle this problem, the Government had begun a few initiatives, including efforts to increase exports, provide transport subsidy, increase activities in the food-for-work programmes and reduce foodgrain prices. On the issue of subsidies, Mr Singh said there was no proposal to reduce subsidies for the agricultural sector. "Farmers do not get much subsidies".

Even efforts at rationalisation of subsidies were only being carried out to reduce distribution losses, he added.

Mr Singh said after 50 years of Independence and after experimenting with various economic models, the realisation had come that agriculture was the backbone of the economy and it provided the livelihood for the majority of the population, to people who had very small land holdings. On an average the Indian farmer held 1.6 ha of land, and 80 per cent have less than two ha.

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