NABARD celebrated its 43rd Foundation Day at its Mumbai headquarters with eminent guests and stakeholders. The event featured a panel discussion on “Climate Risk Management and Banking” with experts from IIT Bombay, Intellecap, and Satyukt.
NABARD Chairman Shaji K. V. highlighted NABARD’s four-decade journey in rural development, financial inclusion, and digital transformation, emphasizing the organization’s mission to uplift and empower rural communities.
Nabard celebrations were also organized through different events in Uttar Pradesh. One such event was organized in Lucknow under the theme ‘Empowerment through Cooperation’, in which state cooperation minister JPS Rathore was the chief guest.
Nabard UP Regional Office CGM S K Dora, UP Registrar of Cooperative Societies Anil Kumar, UP State Co-op Bank Chairman Jitendra Bahadur Singh, Rajesh Kumar Kulshrestha and others were present on this occasion.
It was informed in the meeting that Nabard has given refinance of more than Rs 1 lakh crore in the state of Uttar Pradesh in 10 years. NABARD had provided over Rs 62000 Crore in short term refinance, Rs 22000 crore in long-term refinance and direct refinance of Rs 18000 crore in Uttar Pradesh.
Addressing the gathering, UP Cooperation Minister lauded Nabard’s contributions in UP towards promoting agriculture and the cooperative sector and underlined the importance of cooperatives and PACS in the state for achieving the goal of a 1 trillion-dollar economy.
He said that the State Govt has taken many steps including turning around 16 DCCBs, solving the liquidity issues of weak banks , massive drive to enroll members and mobilise share capital for PACs,etc., he noted.
“UP is in the forefront among all states in PACs computerization and many other initiatives like adoption of model by laws by PACs, converting PACs into multipurpose societies, PACs functioning as agents of CSC, PACs as Jaan Aushadhi Kendra etc”, Rathore said.
He also said that against the last financial year’s disbursement of Rs 10500 crore; this year till June 2024 the Cooperative Sector has already achieved disbursement of Rs 8000 crore as crop loans to farmers of the State the minister claimed.
In his address, Dora said, NABARD, since its inception, in Uttar Pradesh had played a significant role in financing rural infrastructure, which has helped in creating additional irrigation potential of 54.11 Lakh ha, 3.01 lakh meters of rural bridges and over 46000 Km of rural roads, apart from flood protection measures, Rural Schools and Watershed development initiatives and many other things he said.
He also emphasized that KCC has been one of the major financial engineering initiatives of NABARD, which has given ease of credit to millions of farmers in Uttar Pradesh.
Recounting all these achievements, he also highlighted some of the challenges faced by the weak cooperative banks like high NPA, high imbalance, low net-worth and low profitability and low return on assets that needs focussed action for improving the financial position of these cooperative banks he remarked.
On this occasion, NABARD honored UP State Co-op Bank, 10 DCCBs and 3 PACS of the state for their outstanding performance in business expansion, financial inclusion and onboarding of new technologies, etc.
Multipurpose PACS at Mubarakpur and Baraiya from Barabanki district and at Katra Bahadurganj from Bahraich district were felicitated for their excellent work under PACS computerization work.
Besides, The Baroda UPGB and Prathama Gramin Bank were facilitated for their performance in achieving viability plan targets and adoption of technology respectively.
