Nabard to set up 46 farmer units in Haryana, Punjab

To protect the interest of small and marginal farmers in Punjab and Haryana and making farming and allied activities remunerative, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has sanctioned 46 farmer producer organisations (FPOs) for these two states. Out of the total, 25 would be in Haryana and the remaining in Punjab.

These FPOs are aimed at aggregating produce of member farmers to ensure remunerative prices and provide input at competitive prices, besides undertaking post-harvest management practices, including processing and marketing.

Speaking to Business Standard, a senior official at Punjab Regional Office of Nabard (Chandigarh) said, "In the Union Budget 2014-15, the central government had advised us to promote FPOs across the country. Taking a step in this direction, we have sanctioned 21 FPOs for Punjab. For this purpose, we have identified two Producer Organisation Promoting Institutes to form FPOs in the state. We will encourage these POPIs in the form of grant for formation of FPOs."

The minimum requirement for a FPO is it must have 50 farmers as its members. According to the concept, farmers can form groups and register themselves under the Companies Act and can also appoint a CEO (chief executive officer) to run it professionally. These FPOs can be created at state, cluster, and village levels."

The appointed POPIs would support FPO in terms of awareness creation, capacity building, technical support, professional management, provision of initial seed capital and working capital, among others. To encourage the FPOs, Nabard would provide loan, grant and capacity building programmes.

For Haryana, 25 such FPOs have been sanctioned to 10 POPIs. The official said Nabard would promote FPOs in mission mode on a scale like the self-help group.