Jammu and Kashmir: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) celebrated its 32nd Foundation Day on 12 July 2013 at its Jammu & Kashmir Regional Office, Jammu. In his opening address, Dr. B G Mukhopadhyay, CGM, NABARD, J&K Regional Office informed the participants that NABARD was set up as an apex development financial institution with a mandate for agriculture and rural development in the country on 12th July 1982. Over the years NABARD has added numerous other functions viz., credit planning, planning, financing and monitoring of rural infrastructure, refinance to banks, institution building, supervision, watershed and tribal development, consultancy & micro-finance (through its subsidiaries). NABARD is also playing an important role in ‘Financial Inclusion” agenda of the Government, which is considered necessary to pave way for Electronic Benefit Transfer of Subsidies and other incentives to vast majority of population in the country.
Real News Agency
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. T. Haq, Director, Council for Social Development, New Delhi & Former Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices, Govt. of India, delivered Keynote address on the topic “Towards Accelerated and Inclusive Agricultural Growth in Jammu and Kashmir”. Dr Haq, in his address, stated that State of Jammu & Kashmir was lagging in many important Socio-economic parameters such as, Per Capita NSDP, Employment Rate, Agriculture Productivity, Irrigation & Roads. He established the need for inclusive growth in the State and stated that this was possible mainly through Accelerated Growth under Agriculture and allied sectors of the State’s economy, as contribution of these sectors to the State’s GSDP was 21% as against all-India average of 14%, thereby indicating importance of the these sectors to State’s economy. He also identified focus areas for accelerated development, which include:
• Bridging yield gaps under important crops through introduction of System of Rice Intensification (SRI), Hybrid varieties etc. & Off-season vegetable production
• Utilizing irrigation potential & exploiting conducive agro-climatic conditions for different horticultural crops.
• Exploiting unutilzed potentials of floriculture, including medicinal and aromatic plants, spices like black jeera, saffron etc. & Organic farming of fruits and vegetables
• Utlising abundant availability of raw materials for processing and value addition
• Higher density planting in apple orchards