Jaipur, Sep 26 NABARD will explore scaling up its financial support for water-security projects in Rajasthan and work with the state government to expand digital rural credit and strengthen cooperatives as business enterprises, its chairman Shaji Krishnan V said on Saturday.
Krishnan met Rajasthan Chief Secretary V Srinivas here and discussed water security, climate resilience, digital agriculture, rural credit, agricultural markets and cooperatives, according to a NABARD statement.
The two sides also agreed to jointly organise a Rural Development Conclave in October to prepare an action plan for a climate-resilient and water-secure rural Rajasthan.
Krishnan said the next phase of rural development should move beyond creation of assets and focus on faster implementation, stronger rural enterprises, climate resilience and measurable livelihood outcomes.
Water security was identified as a key priority during the meeting. NABARD said it would explore increasing support through the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) and other financing instruments for irrigation modernisation, water-use efficiency, groundwater recharge, watershed development and river-linking projects.
The meeting also discussed transforming Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and other cooperatives from primarily credit-oriented institutions into rural enterprises.
“NABARD will support this transformation through concessional and development-oriented financing, capacity building and business development,” the statement said.
PACS could diversify into input supply, procurement, warehousing, custom hiring, processing, value addition and rural retail, it said.
The two sides also discussed using digitised land records, AgriStack and digital crop-survey data to simplify agricultural credit. NABARD said digitised land records could be used through the RBIH Unified Lending Interface and KRISHIKA app to reduce documentation and facilitate data-based lending, particularly for small and marginal farmers.
(PTI News)
