Has NABARD Fulfilled Its Objective?

Economic growth is intertwined with growth in its all sectors. Agriculture is at gross root level. A sustainable growth in agriculture will have positive direct impact over industry, trade and commerce.Being an agrarian economy India agriculture and its promotion is inevitable to promote economy. It depends numerous variables , finance is one among themselves. But unfortunately Indian agriculturists are financially poor, inevitably depends on credit. Right time credit has its own influence on agricultural output.NABARD is only apex level institution meant for promotion of agriculture and rural development. Preamble of NABARD act 1981 states prime objective of NABARD is “ To serve as an apex refinancing agency for institutions providing investment and production credit for promoting the various developmental activities in rural areas”. It has completed nearly Two decades in the voyage of financing exclusively for agriculture and rural development.NABARD’s financing is made under both Short term and Long term financing schemes. An observation of schematic lending by NABARD during the period 1983 to 2000 registered a 20% growth in it. Where as a review of regional wise sanctions by it, reveals that southern region bagged relatively higher slice in schematic lending. Further, to study any impact of NABARD effort on agricultural out put in the country was the main theme of this paper . A comparison of NABARD long term credit and region wise AGDP values in India are compared. And tested the framed a null hypothesis H0“ LT. Credit for investment in agriculture disbursed by NABARD has resulted in a substantial growth in agriculture in the country. Parametric tests like., Correlation, Regression were applied. The results interpreted through the analysis reveals that a positive correlation between NABARD assistance and growth in agriculture during the study period 1988 and 1998, indicating both are moving on same direction. Also the impact of NABARD assistance towards AGDP explains that Six times of growth was witnessed between those two variables considered for the study. Ultimately such test helps to prove the NABARDs efforts in promotion of agriculture. In spite of it, certain impediments at gross root level institutions in rural credit are NABARD credit flow is obstructed