On Monday, the Directorate General of Information and Public Relations (DGIPR) issued a statement, where the dairy and animal husbandry minister, Mahadev Jankar, said, «Primary dairy cooperatives have issued instructions to open bank account for dairy farmers for online transfer of milk bills. They have been instructed to open accounts in district cooperative banks, nationalised banks, and private banks. If the primary societies fail to comply to instructions, they will be subjected to legal action .»
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Gokul D V Ghanekar, said, «The district milk cooperative had already initiated the process for opening bank accounts of farmers. But, demonetisation gave a big push for the drive and around 50,000 new bank accounts of milk farmers were opened over the last two months.»
He added that as of now, the milk cooperative has opened around 1,97,000 bank accounts. «We have around 3.5 lakh active dairy farmers. This translates to 1.5 lakh bank accounts that have to be opened over the next two months. There are many challenges before us as the district does not have an adequate banking network. Farmers want their payments in cash and are very reluctant to go to banks,» Ghanekar said.
Source: Times Of India
Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/aurangabad/dairy-co-ops-told-to-open-bank-accounts-for-farmers/articleshow/59241733.cms