Jamshedpur, March 5: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has decided to lend a helping hand to the corporate houses to strengthen the projects under its corporate social responsibility (CSR).

For the first time in Jharkhand, the apex development bank will conduct a workshop on March 8 at the Centre for Excellence (CFE) to let corporate houses know about the funding process and technical assistance available from Nabard.

It has approached about 12 corporate houses in the state — Tata Steel, Usha Martin, Coal India, Heavy Engineering Corporation and others — to attend the workshop in Jamshedpur. P.C. Behra, Nabard executive director (Mumbai), will also be present.

“Corporate houses are doing a lot by undertaking social projects on their own but they might lack the expertise of the work. The corporate houses are doing as much as they can, but they need to know that the things they are doing can be better so as to help the grassroots-level beneficiaries. Nabard will be keen to help them financially that many corporate houses are unaware of,” said M.V. Ashok, the chief general manager of Nabard, Jharkhand.

As Ashok puts it, Nabard can fund any CSR project starting from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 crore. However, the bank will only fund projects concerned with rural, agricultural, tribal development and livelihood.

“If any corporate house is interested to collaborate with Nabard, it should submit a detailed project report based on which the bank will decide about the funding,” he said.