Agriculture Credit

Vaibhav
Meaning of Credit
•The word “credit” comes from the Latin word
“Credo” which means “I believe”. Hence credit
is based upon belief, confidence, trust and
faith. Credit is otherwise called as loan.

•Credit/loan is certain amount of money

provided for certain purpose on certain
conditions with some interest, which can be
repaid sooner (or) later.
Agriculture Credit
• Agricultural credit is considered as one of the most basic inputs for
conducting all agricultural development programmes. In India,
there is an immense need for proper agricultural credit as Indian
farmers are very poor. From the very beginning, the prime source
of agricultural credit in India was money lenders.

• After independence, the Government adopted the institutional

credit approach through various agencies like co-operatives,
commercial banks, regional rural banks etc. to provide adequate
credit to farmers, at a cheaper rate of interest. Moreover, with
growing modernization of agriculture during the post-green
revolution period, the requirement of agricultural credit has
increased further in recent years.
What is Rural Credit?
• Agriculture is the primary source of income of
individuals residing in the rural regions across India.
Every year, farmers and peasants need to invest a
considerable amount of funds to ensure a healthy
harvest. Thus, they often resort to borrowing money
from moneylenders and financial institutions to full
their basic needs before harvest season arrives, and
they can earn money by selling their crops.
• Thus, any loan taken for agricultural purposes or small
home businesses across the rural areas in India is
known as a rural credit.
Difference between Agricultural Finance and Rural Credit
There is a difference between agricultural credit and
rural credit. Agricultural credit is linked with the
growth of agriculture; whereas rural finance covers all
the aspects of socio-economic life of rural area. It
covers a wide variety of farm and non-farm productive
activities such as agriculture, animal husbandry,
fisheries forestry, small agro-based industries as well as
development of physical and social infrastructure in the
form of transport and communication, water and power
education and health etc.
Need for Agricultural Credit:
Credit is required in every type of business and agriculture is not
exception to it. The need for agricultural credit however becomes all
the more impotent when it moves from traditional agriculture to
modern agriculture. The agricultural sector at present is beset with a
number of handicaps. The land holding is very small. The population is
growing at a fast rate. Agricultural labouris often underemployed.
Production suffers from weather risks. The capacity of the farmers to
save and invest is very low. The agricultural productivity is low due to
low use of in-puts. The farmers, therefore, need credit to increase
productivity and efficiency in agriculture. This need is increasing over
the years with the rise in use of fertilizers, mechanization and rise in
prices. Briefly the need for agricultural credit can be summed up as
under.
The following points reveals the need for agricultural credit
• 1.Purchase of new inputs:
• 2.Purchase of Implements:
• 3.Better Management :
• 4.Permanent Improvement in Land:
• 5.Better marketing of Products
• 6.To Face Crisis
• 7.Purchase of Cattle
• 8.Payment of ancestor’s Debt
• 9.Consumption Expenditures
• 10.Civil and Criminal Suits
Types of agricultural / rural credit
Considering the period and purpose of the credit requirement of the
farmers of the country, agricultural credit in India can be classified into
three major types

• Short term credit: The Indian farmers require credit to meet their short term
needs viz., purchasing seeds, fertilizers, paying wages to hired workers etc. for a
period of less than 15 months. Such loans are generally repaid after harvest.

• Medium-term credit: This type of credit includes credit requirement of farmers

for a medium period ranging between 15 months and 5 years and it is required for
purchasing cattle, pumping sets, other agricultural implements etc. Medium-term
credits are normally larger in size than short term credit.

• Long term credit: Farmers also require finance for a long period of more than 5
years just for the purpose of buying additional land or for making any permanent
improvement on land like the sinking of wells, reclamation of land, horticulture
etc. Thus, the long term credit requires sufficient time for the repayment of such
loan.
Sources of Agricultural Credit
❑•Credit in the farm sector is available
from two sources

•1.Non-Institutional Sources
•2.Institutional Sources
1 . Non-institutional Sources of Rural Credit:
The major non-institutional sources of farm credit are
1.Money lenders
2.Friends
3.Relatives
4.Landlords
5.Shopkeepers
6.Commission agents
The Money Lenders, were the main suppliers of loans to the farmers. However,
their importance has decreased to a great extent now and the short-term credit
needs of the farmers are met from commission agents, friends and relatives.
The commission agents advance loans to the farmers for short-period. They
force the farmers to sell the produce to them which generally is purchased at
low rates.
❑The lenders of the informal sources (friends, relatives
etc) have certain advantages over the formal credit
sources.

❑•The informal lenders usually know the borrowers

personally.
❑•They require little security for advancing loans
❑•The loans are provided for consumption as well as
production purposes.
❑•The lenders are approachable at all times.
❑•They are also lenient in rescheduling loans.
2.Institutional Sources (Rural Credit)
•1. Land Development Bank

•2. Co-operative Credit Societies

•3. Regional Rural Banks

•4. Commercial Banks

•5. Government
Sources of agriculture credit
• Apart from the moneylenders, cooperative credit
sources and the government, nowadays, the long term
and short term credit needs of institutions are also
being met by National Bank for Agricultural and Rural
Development (NABARD).
• Sources of agricultural credit can be broadly classified
into institutional and non-institutional sources. Non-
Institutional sources include moneylenders, traders and
commission agents, relatives and landlords, but
institutional sources include co-operatives, commercial
banks including the SBI Group, RBI and NABARD.
Commercial banks
• In the initial period, the commercial banks of our country have
played a marginal role in advancing rural credit. With the help of
“village adoption scheme” and service area approach the
commercial banks started to meet the credit and other
requirements of the farmers. They also sponsored various regional
rural banks for extending credit to small and marginal farmers and
rural artisans just to save them from the clutches of village
moneylenders.
• Commercial banks are finding difficulty in advancing loans to the
farmers particularly in respect of lending techniques, security,
recovery etc. and are expected to overcome these gradually. But
the commercial banks are not very much interested to advance
loan to small and marginal farmers.
Government:
Another important source of agricultural credit is the
Government of our country. These loans are known as
taccavi loans and are lend by the Government during
emergency or distress like famine, flood etc. The rate
of interest charged against such loan is as low as 6 per
cent. During 1990-91, the state Governments had
advanced nearly Rs 350 crore as a short-term loan to
agriculture. But the taccavi loan failed to become very
much popular due to official red-tapism and
corruption.
Credit facility to farmers:
• Kissan credit card: The Kissan Credit Card (KCC) scheme was launched in 1998 with
the aim of providing short-term formal credit to farmers. Owner cultivators, as well
as tenant farmers, can avail loans to meet their agricultural needs under this scheme
at attractive rates of interest. The government has also simplified the application
process to increase interest among farmers. Repayment is also simplified and
dependent on the harvesting season, reducing the farmers’ debt burden.
• Investment loan: Loan facility to the farmers is available for investment purposes in
the areas viz. Irrigation, Agricultural Mechanization, Land Development, Plantation,
Horticulture and Post-Harvest Management.
• Interest subvention scheme: The interest subvention scheme for farmers aims at
providing short term credit to farmers at the subsidised interest rate. The policy
came into force with effect from Kharif 2006-07. The scheme is being implemented
for the year 2018-19 and 2019-20.
• The interest subvention will be given to Public Sector Banks (PSBs), Private Sector
Banks, Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) on use of own funds and
to NABARD for refinancing to RRBs and Cooperative Banks.
• The Interest Subvention Scheme is being implemented by NABARD and RBI.
Impact of credit on agriculture
• Providing credit to small farmers at a reasonable rate has been
the agenda of the Centre, the States, and the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) for decades.
• However, the volume of credit has improved over the decades,
its quality and impact on agriculture have only deteriorated.
• In 2011-12, the target was ₹4.75-lakh crore; now, agri-credit
has reached the target of ₹15-lakh crore in 2020-21 with an
allocated subsidy of ₹21,175 crores.
• Agricultural credit has become less efficient in delivering
agricultural growth.
Issues with agri-credit: small farmers left-out
• In the last 10 years, agriculture credit increased by 500% but has not reached even
20% of the 12.56 crore small and marginal farmers.
• 95% of tractors and other agri-implements sold in the country are being financed
by non-banking financial companies, or NBFCs, at an 18% rate of interest.
• The RBI has also questioned agricultural households with up to two hectares getting
only about 15% of the subsidized outstanding loan from institutional sources
(bank, co-operative society).
• As per the Agriculture Census, 2015-16, the total number of small and marginal
farmers’ households in the country stood at 12.56 crore which makes up 86.1% of
the total holdings.
• As in the Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households by the National
Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the share of institutional loans rises with an increase
in land possessed.
• This shows that the bulk of subsidized agri-credit is grabbed by big farmers and agri-
business companies.
What are the reasons
• A loose definition of agri-credit has led to the leakage of loans at subsidized
rates to large companies in agri-business.
• The RBI had set a cap that out of a bank’s overall adjusted net bank credit, 18%
must go to the agriculture sector, and within this, 8% must go to small and
marginal farmers and 4.5% for indirect loans, bank advances routinely breach
the limit.
• A review by the RBI’s internal working group in 2019 found that in some
States, credit disbursal to the farm sector was higher than their agriculture
gross domestic product (GDP) and the ratio of crop loans disbursed to input
requirement was very unevenly distributed.
• This shows the diversion of credit for non-agriculture purposes.
• One reason for this diversion is that subsidized credit disbursed at a 4%-7% rate
of interest is being refinanced to small farmers, and in the open market at a rate
of interest of up to 36%.
Problems regarding Agricultural credit in India
• Insufficiency: In spite of the expansion of rural credit structure, the volume of rural credit in
the country is still insufficient as compared to its growing requirement arising out of the
increase in prices of agricultural inputs.
• Inadequate amount of sanction: The amount of loan sanctioned to the farmers by the
agencies is also very much inadequate for meeting their different aspects of agricultural
operations. Considering the amount of loan sanctioned as inadequate and insignificant, the
farmers often divert such loan for unproductive purposes and thereby dilute the very
purpose of such loan.
• Lesser attention of poor farmers: Rural credit agencies and its schemes have failed to meet
the needs of the small and marginal farmers. Thus, lesser attention has been given on the
credit needs of the needy farmers whereas the comparatively well-to-do farmers are getting
more attention from the credit agencies for their better creditworthiness.
• Inadequate institutional coverage: In India, the institutional credit arrangement continues to
be inadequate as compared to its growing needs. The development of co-operative credit
institutions like Primary agricultural credit societies, land development banks, commercial
banks and regional rural banks, have failed to cover the entire rural farmers of the country.
• Red tapism: Institutional agricultural-credit is subjected to red-tapism. Credit institutions are
still adopting cumbersome rules and formalities for advancing loan to farmers which
ultimately force the farmers to depend more on costly non-institutional sources of credit.
Solutions
• To monitor the taccavi loan offered by the Government in a serious manner.
• Co-operative credit societies should be organised to make it efficient and purposeful for
delivering the best in terms of rural credit. Moreover, these societies may be transformed into
a multi-purpose society with sufficient funding capacity.
• Middlemen existing between credit agencies and borrowers should be eliminated.
• Reserve Bank of India should arrange sufficient fund so that long term loans can be advanced
to the farmers.
• Power and activities of the Mahajans and moneylenders should be checked so as to declare an
end to the exploitation of farmers.
• The banks should adopt procedural simplification for credit delivery through rationalisation of
its working pattern.
• In order to check the fraud practices adopted by the farmer, for getting loans from different
agencies by showing same tangible security, a credit card should be issued against each farmer
which will show the details about the loans taken by them from different agencies.
• Credit should also monitor the actual utilisation of loans by developing an effective supervisory
mechanism.
• The way forward is to empower small and marginal farmers by ‘giving
them direct income support on a per hectare basis rather than hugely
subsidizing credit.
• Streamlining the agri-credit system to facilitate higher crop loans to
farmer producer organizations, or the FPOs of small farmers against
commodity stocks can be a win-win model to spur agriculture growth’.
• With mobile phone penetration among agricultural households in
India being as high as 89.1%, efforts to improve institutional credit
delivery through technology-driven solutions can reduce the extent of
the financial exclusion of agricultural households
• There is a need to reforming the land leasing framework and creating
a national-level agency to build consensus among States and the
Centre concerning agriculture credit reforms.
Agricultural Credit Institution

Vaibhav
Introduction
• Banks are the heart-beat of a nation’s economy and provide an
overview of how the country’s economic growth and financial
activities will perform. All major banks are considered commercial
according to the basic structure as provided in the Reserve Bank of
India Act 1934. However, there are other categories in banking like
Small Finance bank, Payments bank and Co-operative bank under
the scheduled bank category. Commercial banks can further be
categorized into Public Sector banks, Private sector banks, Foreign
Banks, and Regional Rural Banks.
• Commercial banks are regulated under the Banking Regulation Act
1949 and enable a bank to carry out business operations of keeping
money as deposits and grant loans to the public, corporates and the
government itself.
Co-operative Banking
• A Co-operative bank is a financial entity which belongs to its
members, who are at the same time the owners and the
customers of their bank.
• Co-operative banks in India are registered under the States
Cooperative Societies Act. The Co-operative banks are also
regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and governed
by the

• Banking Regulations Act 1949

• Banking Laws (Co-operative Societies) Act, 1955.
Features of Cooperative Banks:
• Customer Owned Entities: Co-operative bank members are both
customer and owner of the bank.
• Democratic Member Control: Co-operative banks are owned and
controlled by the members, who democratically elect a board of
directors. Members usually have equal voting rights, according to the
cooperative principle of “one person, one vote”.
• Profit Allocation: A significant part of the yearly profit, benefits or
surplus is usually allocated to constitute reserves and a part of this
profit can also be distributed to the co-operative members, with legal
and statutory limitations.
• Financial Inclusion: They have played a significant role in the financial
inclusion of unbanked rural masses.
Advantage of Cooperative Banking
• Cooperative Banking provides effective alternative to the traditional
defective credit system of the village money lender.
• It provides cheap credit to masses in rural areas.
• Cooperative Banks have discouraged unproductive borrowing personal
consumption and have established the culture of productive borrowing.
• Cooperative credit movement has encouraged saving and
investment, instead of hoarding money the rural people tend to deposit
their savings in the cooperative or other banking institutions.
• Cooperative societies have also greatly helped in the introduction of
better agricultural methods. Cooperative credit is available for purchasing
improved seeds, chemical fertilizers, modern implements, etc
• Cooperatives Banks offers higher interest rate on deposits.
Problems with Cooperative Banking in India
• Organisational and financial limitations of the primary credit societies considerably
reduce their ability to provide adequate credit to the rural population.
• Large amounts of overdues restrict the recycling of the funds and adversely affect
the lending and borrowing capacity of the cooperative.
• Most of the benefits from the cooperatives have been covered by the big land
owners because of their strong socio-economic position.
• Cooperative Banks are losing their lustre due to expansion of Scheduled Commercial
Bank and adoption of technology. They are also facing stiff competition from payment
banks and small-finance banks.
• Long-term credit extended by them is declining.
• Regional Disparities: The cooperatives in northeast states and in states like West
Bengal, Bihar, Odisha are not as well developed as the ones in Maharashtra and
Gujarat. There is a lot of friction due to competition between different states, this
friction affects the working of cooperatives.
• Political Interference: Politicians use them to increase their vote bank and usually get
their representatives elected over the board of director in order to gain undue
advantages.
Case of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank
• Restrictions imposed by RBI on withdrawals of money from
PMC bank highlighted the strong case of malfunctioning in dual
regulatory system in urban cooperative banking system.
• In above PMC case, there are three major problems- financial
irregularities, failure of internal control and system, and
underreporting of exposures.
• PMC Bank has extended 73% of its assets to HDIL which
created a panicky situation for depositors.
• Since, PMC has deposits from other smaller cooperatives
banks, the financial irregularities which includes governance
and transparency issues will likely to have multi-dimensional
impact.
Commercial banks in India
• Commercial banks in India are the backbone of all major economic activities in the country, whether
it is for the citizens to keep their hard-earned money safely or get loans whenever they need funds
for important things like a home, wedding, a car or for business. It won’t be an analogy to say that
banks and businesses run hand in hand, as without adequate credit support, businesses find it hard to
flourish, and vice versa.
• Scheduled and Non-scheduled Banks:
• Scheduled banks are those banks which are listed in the second schedule of the RBI Act 1934. These
banks are licensed after they fulfil certain statutory conditions such as a paid-up capital of minimum ₹
50 Lakh and must satisfy the CRAR norms as prescribed by the RBI.
• On the other side, non-scheduled banks are mainly the local area banks, and there are very few of
them. These banks are not under any obligation to fulfil CRAR norms or keep reserves. They work on
the lines of a cooperative society and help people in need with mutual aspirations. A few local area
banks are: Coastal Local Area Bank Ltd (Vijayawada), Capital Local Area Bank Ltd (Phagwara),
Subhadra Local Area Bank Ltd (Kolhapur) and a few others.
• Now, if we talk about the major categories that fall under the commercial bank, here are a few details
regarding the same
• Public Sector Banks
• Private Sector Banks
• Foreign Banks
• Regional Rural Banks
Commercial banks
• The commercial banks help the large agricultural sector in developing
countries in a number of ways. They provide loans to traders in
agricultural commodities. They open a network of branches in rural
areas to provide agricultural credit. They provide finance directly to
agriculturists for the marketing of their produce, for the modernisation
and mechanisation of their farms, for providing irrigation facilities, for
developing land, etc.
• They also provide financial assistance for animal husbandry, dairy
farming, sheep breeding, poultry farming, pisciculture and horticulture.
The small and marginal farmers and landless agricultural workers,
artisans and petty shopkeepers in rural areas are provided financial
assistance through the regional rural banks in India. These regional rural
banks operate under a commercial bank. Thus the commercial banks
meet the credit requirements of all types of rural people.
Regional Rural Banks
• These banks also fall under the category of scheduled commercial
banks of small scale, the main objective behind the formation of such
banks is to provide credit support to economically weaker sections of
the society like labourers, farmers, rural traders and small business
owners. Most of these banks are regional as the name suggests,
means these banks operate in particular regions and might have
branches in the metropolitans as well.
• These rural banks work on specific lines and serve major functions
like providing financial credit support to rural and semi-urban areas,
provide support for government schemes by processing payments for
the national pension scheme and MGNREGA beneficiaries. These
banks are considered no less as compared to the nationalized banks,
as they also provide card and locker facilities to their customers.
Features of RRBs
• As these banks were more suitable for rural development work,
preference should be given to them to open branches in rural banks.
• The eligible business of commercial banks rural branches may be
transferred to RRBs
• The losses in initial years of RRBs may be met by shareholders &
equity capital should also be raised.
• The various facilities provided by sponsor banks should continue for
10 years in each case.
• Concessionary refinance by RBI should be continued.
• The control, regulatory and promotional responsibilities relating to
RRBs should be transferred from the Government of India to RBI or
NABARD.
Working of RRBs
•RRBs have done mainly two works:

•Grant of Credit at cheap or concessional

rates
•Lending to individuals belonging to weaker
sections without checking the viability of the
activity proposed to be undertaken.
Objectives of Regional Rural Banks
Regional Rural Banks were established with the following objectives in mind:
• i.)Taking the banking services to the doorstep of rural masses, particularly in
hitherto unbanked rural areas.
• ii.)Making available institutional credit to the weaker sections of the society
who had by far little or no access to cheaper loans and had perforce been
depending on the private money lenders.
• iii.)Mobilize rural savings and channelise them for supporting productive
activities in rural areas.
• iv.)To create a supplementary channel for the flow the central money market
to the rural areas through refinances
• v.)Generating employment opportunities in rural areas and bringing down the
cost of providing credit to rural areas.
With these objectives in mind, knowledge of the local language by the staff is an
important qualification to make the bank accessible to the people.
Organizational structure
• The organizational structure for RRB's varies from branch to branch and depends upon
the nature and size of business done by the branch. The Head Office of an RRB
normally had three to nine departments.
• The following is the decision making hierarchy of officials in a Regional Rural Bank.
• Board of Directors
• Chairman & Managing Director
• General Manager
• Assistant General Manager
• Regional Manager/Chief Manager
• Senior Manager
• Manager
• Officer
• Office Assistant
• Office Attendant
Amalgamation
Currently, RRB's are going through a process of amalgamation and
consolidation. 25 RRBs have been amalgamated in January 2013 into
10 RRBs. This counts 67 RRBs till the first week of June 2013. This
counts 56 as of March 2015. On 31 March 2016, there were 56 RRBs
(post-merger) covering 525 districts with a network of 14,494
branches. All RRBs were originally conceived as low cost institutions
having a rural ethos, local feel and pro poor focus. However, within a
very short time, most banks were making losses. The original
assumptions as to the low cost nature of these institutions were
belied. This may be again amalgamated in near future. With the
third phase of amalgamation of RRB bringing down the number of
such entities to 38 from 56. As of 1 April 2020, there are 43 RRBs in
India.
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)

• NABARD is a development bank focussing primarily on the

rural sector of the country. It is the apex banking institution
to provide finance for Agriculture and rural development. Its
headquarter is located in Mumbai, the country’s financial
capital.
• It is responsible for the development of the small industries,
cottage industries, and any other such village or rural
projects.
• It is a statutory body established in 1982 under
Parliamentary act-National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development Act, 1981.
Functions
• NABARD’s initiatives are aimed at building an empowered and financially inclusive rural India through specific
goal oriented departments which can be categorized broadly into three heads: Financial,
Developmental and Supervision.
• It provides refinance support for building rural infrastructure.
• It prepares district level credit plans to guiding and motivating the banking industry in achieving these targets.
• It supervises Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and helping them develop sound banking
practices and integrate them to the CBS (Core Banking Solution) platform.

• Core Banking Solution (CBS) is networking of branches, which enables Customers to operate their
accounts, and avail banking services from any branch of the Bank on CBS network, regardless of where he
maintains his account. The customer is no more the customer of a Branch. He becomes the Bank’s Customer.
• It is involved in designing Union government’s development schemes and their implementation.
• It provides training to handicraft artisans and helps them in developing a marketing platform for selling these
articles.
• NABARD has various international partnerships including leading global organizations and World Bank-
affiliated institutions that are breaking new ground in the fields of rural development as well as agriculture.
• These international partners play a key consultant’s role in providing advisory services as well as financial
assistance designed to ensure uplifting of rural peoples as well as optimization of various agricultural
processes.
NABARD and RBI
• Reserve Bank of India is the central bank of the country with sole
right to regulate the banking industry and supervise the various
institutions/banks that also include NABARD defined
under Banking Regulation Act of 1949.
• Many developmental and regulatory works are done by RBI and
NABARD in co-operation.

• RBI provides 3 directors to NABARD’s Board of Directors.

• NABARD provides recommendations to Reserve Bank of India on

issue of licenses to Cooperative Banks, opening of new
branches by State Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural
Banks (RRBs).
Governance
• NABARD's affairs are governed by a Board of Directors. The Board of Directors
are appointed by the Government of India in consonance with NABARD Act. It is
constituted of following:
• The Chairperson;
• 3 directors from amongst experts in

• rural economics,
• rural development,
• village and cottage industries,
• small-scale industries,
• or persons having experience in the working of co-operative banks, regional rural banks or commercial
banks,
• or any other matter the special knowledge or professional experience which is considered by the Central
Government as useful to the National Bank;
• 3 directors from out of the directors of the Reserve Bank;
• 3 directors from amongst the officials of the Central Government;
• 4 directors from amongst the officials of the State Government;
 • such number of directors elected in the prescribed manner, by
shareholders other than the Reserve Bank, the Central Government and
other institutions owned or controlled by the Central Government;
• The Managing Director;
• The Chairperson and other directors (except elected ones by share-
holders and officials of the Central Government) shall be appointed by
the Central Government in consultation with the RBI.
• Executive Committees
• The Board of Directors may constitute an Executive Committee consisting
of such number of directors (called Executive Director) as may be
prescribed.
• The Executive Committee shall discharge such functions as may be
prescribed or may be delegated to it by the Board.
Financial Contribution
• Long Term Loans: NABARD's long-term refinance provides credit to financial institutions for
a wide gamut of activities encompassing farm and non-farm activities with tenors of 18
months to more than 5 years.
• Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF): It was set up with NABARD in 1995-96 by the
RBI out of the shortfall in lending to priority sector by scheduled commercial banks for
supporting rural infrastructure projects.
• Long-Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF): The LTIF in NABARD was setup with an initial corpus of Rs
20,000 crore for funding 99 irrigation projects during 2016-17 following announcement in
the Union Budget.
• Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana - Grameen (PMAY-G).
• NABARD Infrastructure Development Assistance (NIDA): NIDA has been designed to
complement RIDF.
• Warehouse Infrastructure Fund (WIF): Union government created WIF in the year 2013- 14
with NABARD with a corpus of Rs 5,000 crore for providing loans to meet the requirements
for scientific warehousing infrastructure for agricultural commodities in the country.
• Food Processing Fund
• Direct Lending to Cooperative Banks
• Credit Facility to Marketing Federations (CFF):
• Producer Organizations Development Fund (PODF) for POs & PACS
Developmental Contribution
• Kisan Credit Card Scheme for Farmers: The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme was
designed by NABARD in association with the RBI in August 1998 for providing crop
loans.
• RuPayKisan Cards (RKCs): NABARD has been at the forefront of technology
revolution by helping rural financial institutions in providing RuPayKisan Cards
(RKCs) to all their farmer clients.
• Tribal Development: the Tribal Development Programme
• Climate Resilient Agriculture
• Umbrella Programme on Natural Resource Management (UPNRM)
• Microfinance Sector
• EShakti: In a bid to digitise SHGs, project EShakti was launched on 15 March 2015.
• Skill Development: Promoting an entrepreneurial culture among the rural youth
and encouraging them to start enterprises in the rural off-farm sector has been
NABARD’s strategy for over three decades.
• Marketing Initiatives: For providing marketing opportunities to rural artisans and
producers, NABARD has traditionally facilitated their participation in exhibitions
across the country.
Conclusion
•Majority of rural people of India depend on
agriculture. Rural infrastructure investments help
in raising the socio-economic status of the rural
people through increased income levels and
quality of life.
•NABARD being an apex institution for providing
credit facilities and capacity building to Indian
rural economy, it has great a opportunity for
poverty reduction and socio-economic
empowerment of rural India.