The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has provided Rs2,691.28 crore for funding cropping operations of farmers through Credit Cooperatives and Rs58.40 crore for agricultural investments and Rs18.48 crore for non-agricultural purposes, respectively. Under a Central scheme, the Cooperatives were provided with Rs46.92 crore for interest subvention and Rs67.90 crore for incentive to the farmers for regular repayment of their dues.
During the year, grant assistance of Rs137 lakh was provided to 11 District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) for promotion of 8,700 Joint liability Groups (JlGs) of landless farmers and sharecroppers. Under its financial inclusion programme, NABARD has started the Financial literacy Centres (FlCs) to enhance the outreach of cooperatives and encourage financial literacy amongst the cooperative members and sanctioned Rs1.34 crore for FlCs in 30 blocks.
For strengthening and revival of the weavers and weavers' cooperatives, Rs16.11 crore was provided to clear the old dues of cooperative banks, besides financial assistance to BAYONIKA and Sambalpuri Bastralaya. For human resource development in cooperatives, NABARD released Rs6.99 lakh for training activities of Agricultural Cooperative Staff Training Institute (ACSTI) of the Odisha State Cooperative Bank.
The bank spearheaded, in coordination with the Secretary (Cooperation), the setting up of Odisha Society for Cooperative Education, Research and Training (OSCERT) for an integrated strategy for training of all concerned with the cooperatives.
NABARD coordinated with GIZ, a German donor agency, for technical and funding support to the OSCERT for revival of Field level Training Centres of DCCBs, provision of modern training gadgets to all cooperative training institutions and conduct of training programmes. Among other areas, the training programmes were conducted for top level officials on corporate governance and modernising the audit of cooperatives.