Nabard to introduce training module for auditors in rural financing

Mumbai, Apr 13 (UNI) The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) will start implementing the special revival programme for cooperative sector next month in four states of Maharashtra, Rajashthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.

The programme formulated by the Union Government based on the Vaidyanathan Committee report, would basically focus on strengthening the cooperative sector mainly in the areas of developing a prudent financial structure to take care of the rural economy, said Nabard Chairman YSP Thorat.

''Today, the cooperative sector is controlled by dual authorities such as Cooperative Registrar at State level and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in respect of Cooperative Banking sector in the areas of public deposit and lending. And the duality of control leads to several conflict in administration of cooperative sector in the country mainly in the agriculture and tiny industry financing,''he added.

Mr Thorat said that only four state Governments have the agreement with Union Government to implement the scheme of bringing reform in their respective cooperative sectors. ''Other states would follow gradually,'' he hoped.

The credit exposure in the cooperative sector amounted to Rs 36,000 crore out of the banking sector total credit portfolio of Rs 1,71,000 crore.

Under the provision made in the last Budget, Nabard become the apex body for implementing the revival packages and would get capital support from the government from time to time depending on the progress made by the participating states.

The package will be implemented in three pahses that cover the areas human resource development through training, technology and legal reforms with overall objective of capitalising the impaired entities in funding tiny sector of the economy.

Consequent on implementation, Mr Thorat said, this would enable creating a suitable legal environment and institutional mechanism in governing the cooperative sector in cooperation with both the state authorities and RBI.

Currently, the capital formation in agriculture sector is only 1.7 per cent of GDP which shows that for increasing growth rate in the sector, a greater effort should be needed towards public-private partnership for more investment.

In 2005-06, Nabard recorded a growth of 18 per cent in deployment of credit at Rs 99,150 crore and posted 13.7 per cent growth in surplus income at Rs 1,151 crore.

The outstandings under investment credit were Rs 33,000 crore, productin credit Rs 9,000 crore and net loans to States under RIDF Rs 15,000 crore.

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