Jaipur, Aug 18 (PTI) Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday directed officials to put in place a strong system to protect people from frauds by various credit societies in the state. The chief minister expressed concerns over complaints of multi-state cooperative societies cheating common people in the name of investment. Gehlot instructed the officials to prepare such a system that in future no such cooperative society in the state could cheat poor people in the name of investment. He also stressed on making general public aware of such societies. Gehlot was addressing a review meeting of agriculture, cooperative and other departments on Tuesday. The chief minister also said that the benefit of the scheme of setting up an agro-processing unit to provide fair value to farmers and increase their income should be given to farmers on a priority basis.

He said that this scheme will not only increase the income of farmers but also add value to crop and create new employment opportunities in the agriculture sector at the local level.

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Under this scheme, farmers can get a loan of up to Rs 1 crore for setting up agro-processing industries, on which a grant of up to 50 per cent will be given by the state government, a statement quoted Gehlot.

The chief minister also gave directions to sanction Rs 250 crore from Farmers Welfare Fund for payment of insurance claims for the Rabi crop 2019-20.

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He said that the process of recruitment of 1,000 posts in various cooperative institutions should be started soon.

The chief minister has also decided to set up a State Level Monitoring Committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary to provide maximum benefit of the agricultural infrastructure fund started by the Government of India to the farmers through the purchase and sale cooperative societies of the state.

In Rajasthan, a target has been set to allocate Rs 9,000 crore under this fund and the newly-formed committee will regularly monitor its implementation.

The chief minister said that the medical sales centres of all the cooperative stores in the state will be made online.

Principal Secretary of Agriculture and Cooperative Department Kunji Lal Meena said that the Cooperative Department has disbursed short term cooperative crop loan of Rs 9,541 crore to 21.86 lakh farmers in 2019-20.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)