Women’s quota in co-ops

This was announced in the House on Tuesday by Minister of State for Co-operation Ramanlal Vora, while replying to the debate on the budgetary demands of his department. He said four more offices of board of nominees would be set up in the State for early disposal of disputes relating to the functioning of co-opertive societies.

The Minister also announced in the House that the government had decided to provide 30 per cent share capital to the co-operative societies proposing to set up sugar factories. This will encourage the development of sugar industry in the State. Besides, it was decided to impose four per cent tax on the import of sugar to ensure that sugarcane growers get remunerative prices.

The Minister assured the House that the Government would initiate action against those co-operative banks that had made huge investments in the CRB without seeking prior permission of the government.

As many as 27 people’s co-operative banks and three district central co-operative banks in different parts of the State had invested a whopping Rs 42.34 crore in the CRB, he said.

Replying to the debate on the budgetary demands of his department, Agriculture Minister Nitin Patel told the House that a 100 per cent export unit of food processing would be set up jointly by an English company and the Gujarat Agro-Industries Corporation in the State.

Patel said the Government had chalked out an action plan to increase the agriculture production in the State, with a 10 per cent growth target being set under the plan.

The Centre has committed to provide 40,000 MTs of urea fertiliser to the State.

The Minister said that out of the total 124 lakh hectares of cultivable land in the State, 28 lakh hectares was lying unutilised and 12 lakh hectares was the saline land. The government would initiate measures to make cultivable these 40 lakh hectares of the land so as to increase the farm production in the State, the Minister added.

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