MUMBAI, October 8 — The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) on Thursday sanctioned the immediate release of ₹5,000 crore under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) to accelerate the execution of critical irrigation, rural road connectivity, and community healthcare assets across 14 state governments.
According to NABARD’s operational notification, the disbursed tranches will finance the rehabilitation of minor irrigation distributaries, flood-protection embankments, and warehouse digitization for Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS). The capital deployment is projected to benefit over 4.5 lakh hectares of cultivable land and reinforce more than 12,000 kilometers of all-weather rural roads, easing farm-to-mandi market access during the harvest cycle.
Established during FY 1995-96, the RIDF is financed through deposits mobilized from domestic commercial banks failing to achieve mandatory Priority Sector Lending (PSL) targets in agriculture. Over its operational lifespan, cumulative sanctions under RIDF have exceeded ₹4.8 lakh crore, establishing the facility as the backbone of decentralized public capital expenditure across Indian hinterlands.
NABARD’s institutional foundation (established under the NABARD Act 1981 following the B. Sivaraman Committee recommendations), the operational dynamics of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), Priority Sector Lending (PSL) non-compliance penalty deposits, and agricultural credit cooperatives (PACS) are foundational syllabus themes for UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Rural Development and Public Capital Formation), NABARD Grade A, and RBI Grade B examinations.