Govt may allow select co-ops to borrow from all lenders

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₹29,000 crore, including the subsidy component for three years up to 2026-27. Currently, cooperatives only have access to Nabard, the country’s apex bank for the agriculture sector, for loans, and the merger will create administrative ease for taking out future loans. The move follows the expiry of the AHIDF’s term, which is now being extending for another next three years.

“The idea of the merger is that cooperatives should also be able to borrow from banks directly. Right now, they must go through the Nabard way," one of the officials said. “The budget for separate schemes will be merged." The Cabinet in June 2020 approved setting up the AHIDF with ₹15,000 crore.

The fund incentivizes investments in the establishment of infrastructure for dairy and meat processing, and facilitates the establishment of animal feed plants in the private sector. The eligible beneficiaries under the scheme are farmer producer organizations (FPOs), micro, small and medium enterprizes (MSMEs), non-profit organizations, private companies and individual entrepreneurs with a minimum 10% margin money contribution by them. The remaining 90% is the loan component taken from scheduled banks.

Similarly, the DPIDF was launched in 2017 to create and strengthen milk processing, value addition and chilling facilities for dairy cooperatives, multi-state dairy cooperatives, milk production companies, NDDBs subsidiaries, self-help groups and registered. It was given an outlay of ₹11,184 crore, including a loan component of ₹8,004 crore from 2018-19 to 2022-23. “With an outlay of ₹29,000 crore, including the subsidy component, AHIDF will be extended for another three years (2023-24 to 2026-27) and the components of DIDF will be brought under AHIDF for