Chief general manager of Nabard, Jharkhand unit, MV Ashok (centre) addresses a news meet in Ranchi on Monday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, April 12: Farmers of the state as well as self-help groups (SHGs) have many a reason to thank National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard). One of them financial uplift.

At a news meet in the state capital today, chief general manager of Nabard, Jharkhand unit, M.V. Ashok announced that the bank had extended financial aid to as many as 1,555 SHGs across the state in 2009-10, thus directly benefiting about 23,000 families.

This apart, the bank has created 654 farmers’ club in addition to the already existing 2,200 clubs. Nabard has also adopted 39 villages for holistic development under its Village Development Plan (VDP).

“The SHGs are provided different kinds of aid — financial and otherwise — for livelihood promotions and capacity building. Besides, they are credit-linked with banks so that they can begin small livelihood programmes and improve their economic situation. Similarly, the farmers’ clubs set up by Nabard are given financial assistance — about Rs 15,000 per month — to carry out agriculture activities in the villages,” Ashok said.

He added that the state unit of Nabard had planned to promote 2.500 more SHGs in the 2010-11 fiscal, besides adopting another 31 villages under VDP.

“Our main focus has been economic improvement of villagers through various programmes,” he added.

During the 2009-10 fiscal, the rural and agriculture bank had disbursed Rs 422.67 crore in Jharkhand. “An amount of Rs 355 crore was given in assisting the state government for rural infrastructure development. The rest of the amount was disbursed to various banks for credit for crop loans as well as non-farm sectors,” said Ashok.

He added that the bank laid special stress on tribal development and natural resource management programmes in 2009-10. Last year, new tribal development programmes worth Rs 19.43 crore were launched.

In order to support cocoon cultivation for boosting the tussar industry, including marketing of the products, Nabard has joined hands with Jharcraft. The chief general manager said the bank had extended financial support to develop 21 handloom clusters in the state.

“Nabard has also prepared a Potential Credit Plan for each district and has assessed a total credit requirement of Rs 9299.29 crore. Credit assessment made for industrial sector stands at Rs 5977.76 crore for 2010-11,” Ashok said.

“We have also identified six focus areas in the state — intensive vegetable cultivation through drip irrigation, floriculture, dairy development, intensive reservoir fish farming, tussar rearing and handloom products and tribal development,” he added.