Nabard staff seeks full-time chairman

State-run National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has been without a chairman for the last five months, after the term of its former chairman, UC Sarangi, ended in December 2010. Currently, Rakesh Singh, additional secretary in the finance ministry, holds the additional charge of Nabard chairman. Nabard managing director KG Karmakar’s term was also over on May 4.

Nabard officers and employee unions have now approached the prime minister and the finance minister for the early appointment of a new chairman. A full-time chairman is essential for the bank to coordinate with commercial and cooperative banks and help achieve the Centre’s target of agricultural credit of over Rs 4 lakh crore in the current financial year.

An inspection report by Nabard had earlier come in handy for the Reserve bank of India to recommend the supersession of the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank (MSCB). However, Nabard's acting chairman had issued orders prohibiting the release of any bank report or communication pertaining to MSCB.

A senior Nabard official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Business Standard, “It has been five months now. The bank is functioning without a full-time chairman and even the managing director’s term ended last week. The Centre had already completed the necessary process to shortlist candidates for the new chairman. It is high time the Centre appointed a new chairman. This is also crucial, since the kharif season is going to start and decisions on refinance are crucial.” The bank has been assigned a crucial role to promote rural infrastructure development.

According to the official, financial assistance of Rs 8,661.45 crore was released in 2010-11 for recapitalisation of 53,380 primary agricultural societies (PACs), against Rs 7,972.22 crore for 49,764 PACs in 2009-2010.