The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has extended financial assistance of Rs 970 crore to the Uttar Pradesh government under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) in the current fiscal.
“The assistance of Rs 970 crore for 1,695 projects is against the total allocation of Rs 1,200 crore for the financial year 2008-09,” Nabard Chief General Manager DP Mishra said.
Since the inception of RIDF in 1995-96, the bank has sanctioned about 13,800 projects with cumulative financial assistance of Rs 7,383 crore to the state.
Meanwhile, the apex development bank has sanctioned a loan of over Rs 72 crore for five irrigation projects. These include four projects of about Rs 10 crore in Banda, Mirzapur, and Allahabad districts and a major irrigation project for upgrading the Hardoi Branch System of Rs 62 crore.
“All these projects will provide irrigation to an area of almost 100,000 hectare and generate almost 2 million man-days of non-recurring, as well as 9,560 jobs per annum of recurring employment when fully operationalised,” Mishra informed.
Nabard also extends necessary support for capacity building of field-level functionaries from implementing departments of the state government by way of conducting workshops every year.
In the current financial year, four such workshops have been planned in Lucknow, Moradabad, Varanasi and Jhansi.
