Nabard's new regional office to be inaugurated on May 15

The new regional office of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), which has come up on KG Road in the City, will be inaugurated on May 15.

The newly-built seven-storey building will have facilities such as conference room, an auditorium with a capacity to accommodate 350 people, parking space among others, Nabard officials announced at a press conference here on Wednesday.

While highlighting the achievements of Nabard in the State during 2012-13, Chief General Manager, Nabard, S N A Jinnah said: “We recorded an all time high financial assistance in the State at Rs 8,424 crore for agricultural and rural development, registering a year on year growth of about 40 per cent. During the year 2012-13, Nabard has disbursed the highest ever investment credit support for banks to the extent of Rs 1,920 crore in the State.”

Crop loans

In order to help the farmers in the consecutively drought affected Karnataka, Nabard has extended concessional crop production finance at 4.5 per cent  per annum to the extent of Rs 5,377 crore during 2012-13 to co-operative banks and regional rural banks.  

Nabard has formulated ‘Umbrella Programme for Natural Resource Management’ under Indo-German partnership.

As many as 15 projects involving a Rs 61.83-crore outlay have been sanctioned by Nabard to enhance livelihood of the poor people in organic farming and processing, integrated diary arming, etc,” added Jinnah.

Nabard is currently facilitating the 11 district central co-operative banks in the State to become total Core Banking Solution compliant by June 2013, so that they can compete with commercial banks and provide direct cash transfer benefit to the clients, the chief general manager said.

Priorities

Delivery of banking services at an affordable cost, improving income levels of farmers, particularly in dryland areas, full coverage of farmers through smart Kisan Credit Cards,  graduating Self Help Groups to micro enterprises, facilitating credit plus services to artisans and weavers in the State and creating more employment in rural sector are some of the priorities of Nabard for the coming years, he added.