The National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (Nabard) is looking for corporates in Jharkhand who are willing to take up its livelihood-enhancing schemes for rural areas in the state while fulfilling their own corporate social responsibility (CSR) obligations.

Although around 12 to 14 corporates are engaged in CSR activities in the state, a majority of them are not focused on improving the livelihood of the beneficiaries of their schemes.

Nabard with its various developmental initiatives and resources thinks that forging an alliance with like-minded individuals and organizations would give a boost to its livelihood earning schemes.

?Some of them (CSR projects) are not moving towards livelihood activities; they are either concentrating only on health or education; so, we wanted them to take a holistic approach to be adopted while having a strategy for CSR activity,? said Nabard Jharkhand regional office chief general manager (CGM) M V Ashok.

This is Nabard?s first move in Jharkhand to try to woo the corporate sector into taking up its tested projects through their CSR activities as they are said to ensure livelihood generation.

Speaking at the inauguration here of a ?consultative meet for coporates to devise Jharkhand-specific strategy under CSR initiatives of corporates? operating in Jharkhand, Nabard executive director P L Behera expected corporates in the state to come forward in collaborating with Nabard, especially as Jharkhand had a poor developmental index.

Nabard is currently disseminating amongst corporates in Jharkhand information about the schemes and programmes it has, particularly in terms of the financial grants and loans associated with them, so that they could take advantage of them. Thus, Nabard, which is currently associated with some of the CSR initiatives taken up by Krishi Gram Vikas Kendra (KGVK) of the Usha Martin group and the Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) of Tata Steel, is looking forward to more such relationships with corporates in Jharkhand.

While KGVK is running several livelihood related projects in Jharkhand today including at Rukka near Ranchi where farmers/technicians are trained to later transfer the knowledge on the field, TDRDS, among many of its initiatives, is currently doing jointly with Nabard and Pune-based Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation, a tribal development project at Seraikela in Seraikela-Kharswan district.

Under Nabard?s ?tribal development model? an NGO/CSR unit is required to identify around 100 to 500 acres of land belonging to several tribal farmers, with each tribal farmer having plantation crop at least on an acre of land, water storage structures and some allied income-generating activity like diary/poultry/goatery, with Nabard providing for the community as a whole facilities such common processing centres, etc. Nabard is seeking to establish at least 20 tribal groups during 2010-11 under its ?tribal development model? which involves a total disbursement of grant money between Rs 55-Rs 60 lakh to each such project, at various stages of their completion in five to seven years.

Similarly, under its grant-based rural entrepreneurship development programme, which has so far been taken advantage of by several groups each comprising of 20-25 individuals, the agricultural bank is targeting to train & launch at least 50 such groups of rural entrepreneurs in the next fiscal in areas such as garment making, mushroom cultivation, vermin-compost making, silk weaving, etc.

As for its watershed projects each of which requires coming together of five to six villages involving around 500 to 1,000 hectares of land, Nabard is keeping a target of funding 50 new projects during 2010-11.