NABARD : Role in Training

•	National Bank Staff College, Lucknow
•	National Bank Training Centre, Lucknow
•	Zonal Training Centre, Hyderabad
•	Regional Training Centre, Mangalore
•	Regional Training Centre, Bolpur
•	Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), Lucknow
The provisions of the Act as stated below very clearly indicate the nature and scope of the developmental mandate of the Bank and its role in training and capacity building with the underlying belief that the process of development cannot be accomplished by credit/refinance alone.
Section 38 of the NABARD Act provides that the Bank shall:
•	maintain expert staff to study all problems relating to agriculture and rural development and be available for consultation to the Central Government, the Reserve Bank, the State Governments and the other institutions engaged in the field of rural development.
•	provide facilities for training, for dissemination of information and the promotion of research including the undertaking of studies, researches, techno-economic and other surveys in the field of rural banking, agriculture and rural development.
•	provide technical, legal, financial, marketing and administrative assistance to any person engaged in agriculture and rural development activities;
•	may provide consultancy services in the field of agriculture and rural development and other related matters in or outside India, on such terms and against such remuneration, as may be agreed upon;
In this context, the role of training in NABARD and the role played by it for capacity building in client institutions, partner agencies and other developmental agencies is important.
For maintaining 'Expert Staff', the bank needs to provide continuous exposure to its officers and staff for up scaling their knowledge and skills in core areas. However, in the initial years the Bank had recruited expert staff from various technical disciplines and created a separate cadre of officers. These officers were involved in formulating, appraising, monitoring and evaluating different agricultural projects implemented by different credit agencies. These officers, irrespective of their academic background, were imparted similar type of training as all other officers. Their placements and the regular job rotations helped in grooming them to take up assorted assignments get involved in a variety of roles and functions including credit, developmental, promotional, supervisory and necessary support and information for decision making. The Bank also had access to their specialized skills which were utilized whenever needed.
In pursuance of the Bank's mandate as stated in the Act, the Bank provides training facilities for the RFIs and agencies involved in rural development through BIRD and the two RTCs. With a view to broad base the training and capacity building efforts, the Bank encourages the RFIs to set up their own training systems and provides these training institutes the necessary support to conduct meaningful and quality training. Options and avenues for strengthening the training interventions at the client level are continuously examined so that the human resources in these institutions are developed to take on the challenges, reckon with the competition, improve customer service, expand outreach, develop suitable products and thereby contribute to rural development.
As NABARD primarily functions through other agencies, the needs of the client institutions largely determine the knowledge and skill requirements of NABARD officers.
NABARD endeavors to blend the experiences of client bank training with the training for NABARD officers so as to make training meaningful and relevant to their roles. Efforts are also made to blend the study findings with the outcome from training to periodically measure the overall impact of the investments made in the training efforts.