Nabard plans agri-business school in Bengal

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is to set up a Natural Resources Management Center to understand and promote sustainable management of natural resources among the farming community.

NABARD is also planning to come up with an Agri-Business school in the region, a first of its kind, in the coming years.

Asim Dasgupta, minister of finance, government of West Bengal, laid the foundation stone of the NRMC project today at Salt Lake Sector-V. The state government has alloted land for the 15 crore project. It would be completed within two years.

The center will provide services on consultancy, project preparation, awareness creation, leadership development, capacity building, etc. It is aimed to develop as a national level information, documentation center with databases on natural resources,and natural resource management systems and technology.

"The NRMC coincides with the agricultural policy of the state government, and the economic policy of the state, as a whole.", commented Dasgupta. "We need to focus on sustainable economic growth process, with optimal use of the local natural resources over a time horizon.", he added. The Statement of Agricultural Policy of the West Bengal government notes that it is not only sufficient to record a growth in agricultural production, but at the same time it should be employment intensive, the minister added. "Hence there is a need for infrastructure, marketing and credit financing for the same.", he said. Total requirement for bank credit in West Bengal is estimated to be at Rs.10,000 crores at present.

"There is a scope for building up a chain in agricultural produce, starting from the farmer's gate point to the consumer. Such an initiative can be led by cooperative institutions like the NABARD.", the minister remarked.

Setting up of the Agri-Business School will further help to create professionals who can cater to the requirements of the small and medium scale industries, farmers, besides Self Help Groups, and other micro-enterprises.

"There are around 70,000 micro-finance groups in the state today. There is a need to impart managerial skills for the SME sector and agricultural and SHG sectors.", Dasgupta commented.

The land for the Agri-business school will be provided by the state government. It would draw upon expertise from other related institutions and use NABARD's network to come up with a unique model for a specialised business programme.

The governing body of NRMC will have experts and specialists from various fields, representatives of the central and state governments, headed by Dr. Y.S.P Thorat, Chairman of NABARD.