Nabard Contribution in Agriculture and Rural Development With Special Reference to Watershed Project Under Ridf Scheme in India

Abstract

The Government of the India is giving emphasis on ‘Growth with Social Justice’ with the basic objective of planning for the development of India since its independence and made significant strides in developing rural India through Five Year Plan. A Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) was introduced in the budget of 1995-96. The RBI governs this fund through NABARD with corpus from the nationalized banks. The NABARD was setup by the Government of India as a development bank in July 12, 1982 which operates through its head office at Mumbai, 28 regional offices situated in state capitals and 391 district offices at districts levels. The mandate also covers supporting all other allied economic activities in rural areas, promoting sustainable rural development. The various functions of NABARD are supervisory functions, institutional and capacity building, role in training etc. The paper analyses some of the issues that arise in the context of utilization of the fund under watershed for farm irrigation in Agra District of Uttar Pradesh, India