1. Institutional Profile
1.1 Genesis
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) was established on 12 July 1982 by an Act of Parliament. It is an apex level organisation for agriculture and rural development operating in the country.

1.2 Mandate
NABARD was set up by the Govt. of India with a mandate for facilitating credit flow for promotion and development of agriculture and small scale industries, cottage and village industries, handicrafts and other rural crafts. It also has the mandate to support all other allied economic activities in rural areas, promote integrated and sustainable rural development and secure prosperity of rural areas.

1.3 Mission
Promote sustainable and equitable agriculture and rural prosperity through effective credit support, related services, institutional development and other innovative initiatives.

1.4 Organisational profile
NABARD operates through its Head office at Mumbai, 28 Regional Offices located in the States, a Sub Office at Port Blair, Training Establishments at Lucknow, Bolpur, Mangalore and Hyderabad and has 392 District Development Managers functioning at district level. NABARD has on its roll 4936 staff.

1.5 Role in rural finance and poverty reduction

• Refinancing RFIs for financing investment and production purposes in rural areas
• Loans to State Governments for strengthening cooperatives through share capital contribution to cooperative societies and also developing critical infrastructure including social infrastructure in rural areas
• Support for micro credit innovations of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other non-formal agencies.
• Monitoring and Evaluation of financed projects.
• Initiating concerted efforts for financial inclusion.
• In order to ensure availability of timely credit to farmers, banks follow production-oriented system of lending covering various agricultural operations based on area under different crops and crop-wise scales of finance.
• Refinance is provided by way of credit limits for financing such agrticultural operations at concessional rates of interest to State Cooperative Banks (SCBs), District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs).
Refinance is provided to Cooperative Banks for financing production and marketing activities of industrial cooperative societies engaged in one or more of the 22 approved broad groups of Cottage and Small Scale Industries (SSIs).
• To boost handloom sector refinance is provided to SCBs and DCCBs to meet the working capital requirement of Weavers’ Societies and Handloom Development Corporations.
• Refinance is also provided on financing made to State Handicraft Development Corporations for production, procurement and marketing of handicrafts.
• Kisan Credit Card which is a Credit Card for farmers provides adequate and timely support from the banking system to the farmers for their cultivation needs.
• Providing investment credit for allied agriculture activities and non-farm sector activities on rural areas which leads to capital formation to banks.
• Providing direct credit to State Governments to contribute to the rural infrastructure development and share capital contribution to cooperative societies.
• To achieve higher growth in agriculture, a comprehensive farm credit package envisaging 30% growth in credit flow to agriculture and doubling it over three years along with debt relief measures to farmers was ensured by NABARD.