Overview

The Heritage Artisan Cooperatives programme, administered through the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), provides financial assistance and capacity-building support to eligible artisan cooperative societies across India. Aligned with the evolving needs of the cooperative sector, the programme delivers a range of sector-specific schemes and focused financial products to strengthen artisan cooperatives, including those in the Puri district of Odisha. As of 30 June 2026, NCDC has disbursed ₹3,352.03 crore for cooperative development in Odisha State, with ₹3.78 crore disbursed in Puri district over the previous five years.

Funding and Benefits

NCDC provides financial assistance in the form of term loans, investment loans, and subsidy to cooperative societies for their development. Loan components are provided from NCDC’s own funds, while eligible subsidy is dovetailed from other central sector schemes. Key support measures include:

• Financial Assistance for Infrastructure and Marketing: Funding for infrastructure creation, value addition, processing, and marketing of artisan and handicraft products.
• Capacity Building and Entrepreneurship: Training and awareness programmes to facilitate entrepreneurship development, marketing support, and improved access to institutional finance.
• Promotion of Digital Literacy: Digital literacy integrated into all training and capacity-building interventions to enable digital onboarding and modern business practices.

Activities assisted under the programme include marketing, processing, storage, cold chain, industrial development, distribution of essential consumer articles, credit and service cooperatives, cooperative banking, agricultural services, district plan schemes, weaker section cooperatives, computerisation of cooperatives, and promotional and developmental programmes.

Focused Products and Schemes

NCDC offers several focused financial products specifically designed for cooperative societies:

• YUVA SAHAKAR – Cooperative Enterprise Support and Innovation Scheme: Launched in 2019-20, aims to encourage newly formed cooperative societies with new and innovative ideas.
• Ayushman Sahakar: Launched in 2020-21, covers hospitals, healthcare, medical education, nursing education, paramedical education, health insurance, and holistic health systems such as AYUSH.
• NAndini Sahakar: Operational since 2020-21, improves the socio-economic status of women and supports entrepreneurial dynamism through women’s cooperatives, converging critical inputs such as business plan formulation, capacity development, credit, subsidy, and interest subvention.
• DAIRY SAHAKAR: Launched in 2021-22, a cooperative dairy business framework encouraging cooperatives to achieve higher outcomes in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) linked activities, including infrastructure creation for new projects and modernisation or expansion of existing projects.
• DIGITAL SAHAKAR: Operational since 2021-22, aligned with Digital India, provides a focused financial assistance framework for digitally empowered cooperatives, with handholding and credit linkage dovetailed with grant, subsidy, and incentives from government agencies.
• SWAYAM SHAKTI SAHAKAR YOJNA: Launched in 2022-23, provides NCDC financial assistance to agricultural credit cooperatives for extending loans or advances to women self-help groups.
• DEERGHAVADHI KRISHAK PUNJI SAHAKAR YOJNA: Launched in 2022-23, extends long-term financial assistance to agricultural credit cooperatives for onward lending of long-term loans or advances for activities and commodities under NCDC’s purview.
• SAHAKAR INNOVATION SCHEME: Launched in 2025-26, provides grant assistance of up to ₹25 lakh to eligible cooperative societies for promoting innovation, adoption of new technologies, development of innovative products, services, and business models, market linkages, and sustainability-oriented initiatives.

In addition, NCDC facilitates access to other central schemes including those under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, and others.

Eligibility

Eligible candidates include artisan cooperative societies across the country, including those in the Puri district of Odisha. The promotional and financial assistance schemes are available to all eligible artisan cooperative societies subject to the fulfilment of prescribed guidelines and eligibility criteria under the respective schemes. As per the National Cooperative Database, there are 756 registered cooperative societies in Puri district, with 17 handicraft cooperative societies currently functional and engaged in different handicrafts.

Key Activities and Impact

Marketing assistance is provided to handicraft artisans and members of handicraft cooperative societies through exhibitions, fairs, and melas organised at the district, state, and national levels. Artisans are also sensitised on digital literacy and consolidation of required documents for onboarding into e-commerce platforms through training programmes and awareness camps. NCDC’s disbursements in Odisha over the last five years (2021-22 to 2026-27 as on 30 June 2026) cover activities such as marketing, service cooperatives, dairy and livestock, farmer producer organisations, fisheries, fisheries FPOs, computerisation, and storage, with total disbursements of ₹4.07 crore in 2021-22, ₹1.61 crore in 2022-23, ₹3.25 crore in 2023-24, ₹5.89 crore in 2024-25, ₹7.03 crore in 2025-26, and ₹1.53 crore in 2026-27 as on 30 June 2026.