Tamil Nadu to get Rs 700cr NCDC aid

The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) is planning to provide a financial assistance of Rs 700 crore to Tamil Nadu for the development of cooperatives in state in the next two-three years.

An NCDC press statement said that the financial assistance of Rs 700 crore will include a subsidy of Rs 31 crore for various cooperative development projects.

Major programmes include covering the entire state under Integrated Cooperative Development Projects (ICDP), rehabilitation of five cooperative spinning mills "" Anna, Kanniyakumari, Bharathi, Pudukkottai and Dharmapuri, rehabilitation of 12 potentially-viable cooperative sugar mills, and establishment of distillery and co-generation power plants by sugar mills.

Promotion of handloom cooperatives and assistance for restructuring of Co-optex are also part of the plan. The plan has provision for element of subsidy up to 25 per cent of the cost of the plant and machinery pertaining to rehabilitation of cooperative spinning mills or construction of rural godown or repairs to existing rural and marketing godowns.

This will involve a soft loan from the Sugar Development Fund (SDF) and an interest rebate from the Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF), beside the funding by NCDC.

The statement further said that NCDC had provided Rs 734.84 crore including a subsidy of Rs 16 crore so far. This includes an all-time high financial assistance of Rs 150 crore made during 2004-05.