The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)

ICAR is an autonomous organisation under the Department of Agricultural Research

and Education (DARE), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare , Government of
India. Formerly known as Imperial Council of Agricultural Research, it
was established on 16 July 1929 as a registered society under the Societies
Registration Act, 1860 in pursuance of the report of the Royal Commission on
Agriculture. The ICAR has its headquarters at New Delhi.

The Council is the apex body for co-ordinating, guiding and managing research and
education in agriculture including horticulture, fisheries and animal sciences in the
entire country. With 101 ICAR institutes and 71 agricultural universitiesspread
across the country this is one of the largest national agricultural systems in the
world.
The ICAR has played a pioneering role in ushering Green Revolution and subsequent
developments in agriculture in India through its research and technology
development that has enabled the country to increase the production of
foodgrains by 5 times, horticultural crops by 9.5 times, fish by 12.5
times , milk 7.8 times and eggs 39 times since 1951 to 2014, thus making a
visible impact on the national food and nutritional security. It has played a major
role in promoting excellence in higher education in agriculture. It is engaged in
cutting edge areas of science and technology development and its scientists are
internationally acknowledged in their fields.

Krishi Vigyan Kendra

History

Based on the recommendation of the Education Commission (1964-66), consideration /

review by the Planning Commission and Inter-Ministerial Committee, and further
recommendation

by the committee headed by Dr.Mohan Singh Mehta appointed by

ICAR in 1973 the idea of establishment of Farm Science Centre (Krishi Vigyan Kendra)
was evolved.

The first KVK, on a pilot basis, was established in 1974 at Pondicherry under the
administrative control of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, in 1976-77,
the Planning Commission approved the proposal of the ICAR to establish 18 KVKs during
the Fifth Five Year Plan.
There were 551 KVKs at the end of Tenth Plan which included 371 under State
Agricultural Universities (SAU) and Central Agricultural University (CAU), 40 under ICAR
Institute, 88 under NGOs, 33 under State Governments, 3 under PSUs and the remaining
16 under other educational institutions.

At present there are 567 KVKs established in the country. With a decision of
establishment of KVKs in all the rural districts during Tenth Plan, the qualitative
improvement in the working of KVKs was envisaged through the mandate as

Technology

assessment,

refinement

and

demonstration

of

technology

products.

The activities of KVK include

* On-farm testing to identify the location specificity of agricultural technologies under

various farming systems.
* Frontline demonstrations to establish its production potentials on the farmers fields.

* Training of farmers to update their knowledge and skills in modern agricultural

technologies, and training of extension personnel to orient them in the frontier areas of
technology development.
* To work as resource and knowledge centre of agricultural technology for supporting
initiatives of public, private and voluntary sector for improving the agricultural economy
of the district.

In order to create awareness about improved technology, a large number of extension

activities will be taken up. The seeds and planting materials produced by the KVKs will
also be made available to the farmers.

Swachh Sarvekshan 2016: Indias Cleanest Cities

1. Mysore (Karnataka)
2. Chandigarh
3. Tiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu)
4. New Delhi
5. Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh)
6. Surat (Gujarat)
7. Rajkot (Gujarat)
8. Gangtok (Sikkim)
9. Pimpri Chinchwad (Maharashtra)
10. Greater Mumbai (Maharashtra)

NABARD--------Role and Function

Particulars of its organization, functions and its duties
NABARD is a Development Bank with a mandate for providing and regulating credit and other
facilities for the promotion and development of agriculture, small-scale industries, cottage and village
industries, handicrafts and other rural crafts and other allied economic activities in rural areas with a
view to promoting integrated rural development and securing prosperity of rural areas, and for matters
connected therewith or incidental thereto.
In discharging its role as a facilitator for rural prosperity, NABARD is entrusted with

1. Providing refinance to lending institutions in rural areas

2. Bringing about or promoting institutional development and
3. Evaluating, monitoring and inspecting the client banks
Besides this pivotal role, NABARD also:

Acts as a coordinator in the operations of rural credit institutions

Extends assistance to the government, the Reserve Bank of India and other
organizations in matters relating to rural development

Offers training and research facilities for banks,

organizations working in the field of rural development

Helps the state governments in reaching their targets of providing assistance

to eligible institutions in agriculture and rural development

Acts as regulator for cooperative banks and RRBs

cooperatives

and

Some of the milestones in NABARD's activities are:

A. Business Operations:

Production Credit: NABARD sanctioned aggregating of 66,418 crore

short term loans to Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks
(RRBs) during 2012-13, against which, the maximum outstanding was
65,176 crore.

Investment Credit : Investment Credit for capital formation in

agriculture & allied sectors, non-farm sector activities and services
sector to commercial banks, RRBs and co-operative banks reached a

level of 17,674.29 crore as on 31 March 2013 registering an increase of

14.6 per cent, over the previous year.

Rural
Infrastructure
Development
Fund
(RIDF):
Through the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) 16,292.26
crore was disbursed during 2012-13. A cumulative amount of 1,62,083
crore has been sanctioned for 5.08 lakh projects as on 31 March 2013
covering irrigation, rural roads and bridges, health and education, soil
conservation, drinking water schemes, flood protection, forest
management etc.

B. New Business Initiatives:

NABARD Infrastructure Development Assistance (NIDA):

NABARD has set up NIDA, a new line of credit support for funding of
rural infrastructure projects. The sanctions under NIDA during the year
2012-13 was 2,818.46 crore and disbursement was 859.70 crore.

Producers
Organisations
Development
Fund
(PODF):
In its endeavour to support Producers Organizations in a
comprehensive manner, NABARD sanctioned as assistance of 55.95
crore out of Producer Organization Development Fund (PODF) to 34
POs during 2012-13. The disbursment amounted to 29.18 crore
covering major activities like dairy, fishery, marketing infrastructure and
agro processing infrastructure.

Direct refinance assistance to CCBs for short term multipurpose

credit:
Direct refinance assistance to CCBs was conceived and additional line
of finance for CCBs in the light of recommendations of the Task Force
on Revival of Short Term Rural Cooperative Credit Structutre, which
enables the latter to raise financial resources other than from StCBs.
During 2012-13, refinance assistance aggregating 3,385 crore was
sanctioned to 42 CCBs and three StCBs and disbursement stood at
2,363.45 crore.

Support to develop PACS as Multi Service Centres:

Keeping in mind the wide coverage of PACS at the ground level and
the limited products at their disposal, NABARD extended financial

support to StCBs/CCBs/PACS to develop PACS as Multi Service

Centre (MSCs) so as to serve as one Stop Shopunit for meeting the
various requirements of the farmers. During 212-13,747 PACS were
supported with sanction of 141.17 crore and the disbursements
thereagainst stood at 48.84 core, assistance for estabilishment of agro
service, processing, storage and information centres, etc.

NABARD Initiated Project on Core Banking Solutions (CBS) in Cooperatives

:
Through Core Banking Solution (CBS), Co-operatives are being
brought to a higher technology platform so as to compete with other
banks for business and growth. The programme made rapid strides
with 5,543 branches of 163 banks across 10 States joining the platform
in the first phase and 42 banks joining in the second phase, a total of
7,088 branches of 205 StCBs and CCBs across 16 States and three
UTs came into the umbrella of the programme as on 31 March 2013.

C. Development Initiatives:

Watershed
Development
Fund
(WDF):
The cumulative number of watershed projects sanctioned under
Watershed Development Fund (WDF) stood at 586 in 16 States
covering an area of 5.40 lakh ha with total commitment (loan and grant
component) of 306.36 crore as on 31 March 2013.

Farm Innovation and Promotion Fund (FIPF) and Farmers

Technology
Transfer
Fund
(FTTF):
The funds were created out of the operating profits of NABARD to
support innovative ventures and to support technology transfer in farm
sector and its corpus stood at 50.00 crore and 61.21 crore respectively
as on 31 March 2013. Grant assistance of 9.90 croreand 39.79 crore,
respectively, were disbursed for various interventions under the
programme during 2012-13.

Farmers
Clubs:
With the launching of 24,802 new Farmers Clubs during the year, the
number of clubs reached 1.27 lakh as on 31 March 2013.

Umbrella Programme on Natural Resource Management (UPNRM):

UPNRM aims to boost rural livelihoods by supporting communitymanaged sustainable natural resource management projects.
Assistance of 174.30 crore was sanctioned during 2012-13 taking the
cumulative sanction to 386.92 crore as at the end of March 2013. The
cumulative disbursment under the programme amounted to 217.57
crore, including 207.23 crore as loan and 10.34 crore as grant.

Tribal
Development
Fund
(TDF):
During the year 2012-13, financial assistance of 224.26 crore was
sanctioned for 69 projects benefiting 53,700 tribal families in 14 States.
The cumulative sanction as on 31 March 2013 was 1,432 crore,
covering 3.80 lakh families in 484 projects across 26 States/UTs.

Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF) and the Financial Inclusion

Technology
Fund
(FITF)
:
As on 31 March 2013, the cumulative sanctions under FIF and FITF
were 181.64 crore and 365.49 crore, respectively againstwhich
disbursements were 69.77 crore and 201.30 crore, respectively.

SHG-Bank
Linkage
Programme:
As on 31 March 2013, there were more than 73.18 lakh savings linked
Self Help Groups (SHG) and more than 44.51 lakh credit-linked SHGs
covering over 10.3 crore poor households under the micro-finance
programme. NABARD carried forward its guiding role in the
microfinance programme during 2012-13 by taking a host of new
initiatives and consolidating some of the already operational
interventions.

SIDBI -----Small Industries Development Bank of India

Role and functions:
Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) was set up under an Act of
Parliament in April 1990. Though it was initially carved out as a wholly owned
subsidiary of Industrial Development Bank of India, presently the ownership is held by
33 Government of India owned / controlled institutions.
The mandate of SIDBI is promotion, financing and development of Micro, Small and
Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and to co-ordinate the functions of institutions serving
the sector.
The authorised capital of SIDBI is ` 10 billion ( 125 million) and paid up capital is `
4.50 billion ( 56.25 million). The networth of SIDBI as on March 31, 2014 was ` 80
billion ( 1 billion).
The presence of SIDBI is spread all over India with the following structure :
Head office at Lucknow
15 Regional Offices
84 Branches catering to 600 clusters across all the states
Total No. of employees 1046
The Mission of SIDBI is To facilitate and strengthen credit flow to MSME and address
both financial and developmental gaps in the MSME eco-system. SIDBI is also working
with the vision to emerge as a single window for meeting the financial and
developmental needs of the MSME sector to make it strong, vibrant and globally
competitive, to position SIDBI Brand as the preferred and customer - friendly
institution and for enhancement of share - holder wealth and highest corporate values
through modern technology platform.

SIDBI reoriented its business strategy towards filling up the financial

and non-financial gaps in the MSME eco-system. Some of the niche
financial gaps being addressed by SIDBI are risk capital / equity
assistance, sustainable finance, factoring and reverse factoring,
services sector financing, etc. The direct finance to these niche
areas is supplementing and complementing the efforts of the
banks / FIs to meet varied credit needs of the MSMEs.
SIDBI has also taken strategic initiatives for addressing various nonfinancial gaps for capacity building of the MSME sector, as well as
bankers. These activities include Credit Advisory Services, Loan
Facilitation, information dissemination through website
www.smallB.in, capacity building of small banks, etc.

In its endeavour towards holistic development of the MSME sector, SIDBI adopts a
Credit Plus approach wherein, besides credit, the Bank also provides grant support
for the Promotion and Development (P&D) of the sector to make it strong, vibrant and
competitive. The P&D activities of the bank include Micro Enterprise Promotion,
Entrepreneurship Development, Cluster Development, Capacity Building of the MSME
Sector, promoting Responsible Finance among Micro Finance Institutions, Sustainable
Finance to MSMEs including Energy Efficiency, Environment Protection, etc.
Cumulative disbursements as at end March 2014 have crossed ` 3260 billion ( 40.75
billion) benefiting more than 32 million persons in the MSME sector. The total
outstanding portfolio as at end March 2014 aggregated ` 612.71 billion ( 7.66 billion).
SIDBI also functions as a Nodal/ Implementing Agency to various ministries of
Government of India viz., Ministry of MSME, Ministry of Textiles, Ministry of Commerce
and Industry, Ministry of Food Processing and Industry, etc.
SIDBI has taken the initiative to promote several institutions viz., Credit Guarantee
Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises, SIDBI Venture Capital, SME Rating Agency
of India Ltd and India SME Technology Services Ltd., for the benefit of the MSME
sector.

INDIA STATE Forest Report 2015

Forest cover of India has increased by 5,081 square kilometre between

2013 and 2015. The India State Forest Report 2015, released by Union
Environment Minister, Prakash Javadekar, also showed that the country's
carbon stock has also increased by 103 million tonnes.
Here are some positive points to know from the forest report:
India follows a policy of keeping one-third of the country's total land
area under forest and tree cover
The forest cover of India has increased by 21.34 percent in the last
two years
Very dense forests in India cover 2.61 percent of the total forest area,
moderately dense forests account for 9.59 percent while open forests
stand at 9.14 percent
Among all the states and Union Territories, Mizoram has the highest
forest cover with 88.93 percent of the total area, followed by
Lakshadweep
However, northeastern states have experienced a decline in forest
cover except Manipur
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have gained around 1,930 square
kilometre of very dense forests, Uttar Pradesh has added 572 square
kilometre of very dense forest cover and Tamil Nadu has reported a
net gain of 100 square kilometre of very dense forest cover
The mangrove cover in India has increased by 112 square kilometre
following acute conservation in the Sundarbans and Bhitarkanika
forest.
Here are some downsides of the forest report:

 Although the total forest cover has seen an increase, around 2,510
square kilometre of very dense and mid-dense forests have been
wiped out since 2013
States of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Kerala,
Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana have suffered huge
loss of forest cover
Around 2,254 square kilometre of mid-dense forest cover has turned
into non-forest lands in the past two years.