National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

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National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is an apex development bank in India. It has been accredited with "matters concerning policy, planning and operations in the field of credit for agriculture and other economic activities in rural areas in India".

1 History
2 Role
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

NABARD was established by an act of Parliament on 12th July 1982 to implement the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Act 1981. It replaced the Agricultural Credit Department (ACD) and Rural Planning and Credit Cell (RPCC) of Reserve Bank of India, and Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation (ARDC).

[edit] Role

NABARD:

serves as an apex financing agency for the institutions providing investment and production credit for promoting the various developmental activities in rural areas
takes measures towards institution building for improving absorptive capacity of the credit delivery system, including monitoring, formulation of rehabilitation schemes, restructuring of credit institutions, training of personnel, etc.
co-ordinates the rural financing activities of all institutions engaged in developmental work at the field level and maintains liaison with Government of India, State Governments, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and other national level institutions concerned with policy formulation
undertakes monitoring and evaluation of projects refinanced by it.

NABARD's refinance is available to State Co-operative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks (SCARDBs), State Co-operative Banks (SCBs), Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), Commercial Banks (CBs) and other financial institutions approved by RBI. While the ultimate beneficiaries of investment credit can be individuals, partnership concerns, companies, State-owned corporations or co-operative societies, production credit is generally given to individuals.

NABARD has its head office at Mumbai, India

NABARD operates throughout the country through its 28 Regional Offices and one Sub-office, located in the capitals of all the states/union territories.Each Regional Office[RO] has a Chief General Manager [CGMs]as it's head, and the Head office has several Top executives like the Executive Directors[ED], Managing Directors[MD], and the Chairperson.It has 336 District Offices across the country, one Sub-office at Port Blair and one special cell at Srinagar. It also has 6 training establishments.

NABARD is also known for its 'SHG Bank Linkage Programme' which encourages India's banks to lend to self-help groups (SHGs). Because SHGs are composed mainly of poor women, this has evolved into an important Indian tool for microfinance. As of March 2006 2.2 million SHGs representing 33 million members had to been linked to credit through this programme..^[1]