The Union government has set a target to establish multipurpose primary agriculture credit societies (PACS) in 200,000 panchayats that have no cooperative institution in the next five years, Union home and cooperation minister Amit Shah said on Saturday.

Addressing the “Sahkar se Samriddhi” (Prosperity through Cooperation) programme in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar organised to mark the 102nd International Day of Cooperatives, Shah said the Centre will also ensure that each district in the country will have a co-operative bank and a milk producers’ union.

The Union ministry of cooperation has taken many important steps. The government has set a target that there should not be any state or district in the country where there is not a viable district cooperative bank and a viable district milk producers’ union. Even today there are two lakh (200,000) panchayats in the country where there is no cooperative institution. In the next five years, we will work to create multipurpose PACS in these two lakh panchayats,” Shah said.