- National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is an apex development bank in India. It has been accredited with "matters concerning policy, planning and operations in the field of credit for agriculture and other economic activities in rural areas in India".
- NABARD was established by an act of Parliament on 12 July 1982 to implement the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Act 1981. It replaced the Agricultural Credit Department (ACD) and Rural Planning and Credit Cell (RPCC) of Reserve Bank of India, and Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation (ARDC). It is one of the premeire agency to provide credit in rural areas.
NABARD:
- serves as an apex financing agency for the institutions providing investment and production credit for promoting the various developmental activities in rural areas
- takes measures towards institution building for improving absorptive capacity of the credit delivery system, including monitoring, formulation of rehabilitation schemes, restructuring of credit institutions, training of personnel, etc.
- co-ordinates the rural financing activities of all institutions engaged in developmental work at the field level and maintains liaison with Government of India, State Governments, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and other national level institutions concerned with policy formulation
- undertakes monitoring and evaluation of projects refinanced by it.
NABARD is also known for its 'SHG Bank Linkage Programme' which encourages India's banks to lend to self-help groups (SHGs). Because SHGs are composed mainly of poor women, this has evolved into an important Indian tool for microfinance. As of March 2006 2.2 million SHGs representing 33 million members had to been linked to credit through this programme.
