Nabard marches ahead

Having completed 22 years of service, Nabard looks back at its endeavours in accelerating the flow of credit to the agricultural and rural sectors

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has successfully completed 22 years of service to the nation. Its contribution has been of great assistance particularly to the rural populace. It is an important milestone for the Bank in the journey towards achievement of its mission of promoting sustainable and equitable agricultural development and rural prosperity. Over the years, Nabard has evolved into a key development financial institution with a difference. It has made a mark in its endeavours in accelerating the flow of credit to the agricultural and rural sectors. It has also carved a niche in assuming the role of an agent of change, facilitating and encouraging change right from the grassroots level.
Nabard can look back with pride at the tangible difference its initiatives made to the people in the rural areas. Today, Nabard has emerged as a vibrant national institution that displays a consistent commitment to rural development. During this period, the Bank has taken rapid strides in all the traditional functional areas, and at the same time, it has also taken up new challenges.
The Bank is actively involved in planning at the ground level and has undertaken many experiments that have assumed the status of mass movements.
The amendments to the Nabard Act in 2001,enabled it to effectively cope with the needs of the economic and financial sector reforms and further strengthened the organisation.

INITIATIVES AND EXPERIENCES
At the time of its establishment, the institution restricted its scope to a limited sphere of activities, namely, providing refinance and inspection of cooperative banks and Regional Rural Banks. An overview of its past journey would indicate that the role and responsibilities of Nabard have increased manifold. Today, the organisation has assumed the collective mantle of a refinancing institution, development finance institution, infrastructure financing institution, consultancy organisation, training and capacity building organisation, micro finance institution and a regulatory institution.
Thus, Nabard excels in the myriad roles of its functioning. It also fulfills the expectations that have been envisaged by the Committee to Review Arrangements for Institutional Credit for Agriculture and Rural Development for creating an institution to pay “undivided attention, forceful direction and pointed focus to the problems of rural and agricultural credit”.
Nabard has over the years confronted innumerable challenges and also took up several initiatives. A few of these successes have positively touched the lives of the rural people for whose cause Nabard was established and have made a tangible difference at the grassroot level. The Self Help Group bank linkage programme has helped the economic and social empowerment of women, enabling them to be more assertive while confronting social evils. The Watershed Development Programmes have improved drinking water availability and the recharging of ground water, thereby increasing agricultural productivity and crop diversification. They have also reduced distress migration and improved rural housing and health care.
Some of the weakest sections of the tribal society in Gujarat and Maharashtra have benefited through the ‘Wadi’ Project (sustainable horticultural production in marginal and wastelands owned by tribals) being implemented with financial assistance from KfW banking group, Germany. The project increased opportunities for employment, thus reducing the need to migrate for a livelihood and resulted in increased entrepreneurial skills and empowerment of the tribals, specially the women. The projects sanctioned out of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund have accelerated development in the rural areas with downstream effects, attracting further private investments and economic activity. Similarly, the Kisan Credit Card Scheme has helped more than 4.15 crore farmers gain access to instant credit from banks for the purchase of agricultural inputs, providing insurance cover against accidental death or permanent disability at the same time.
All these achievements have come about with...

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