National Council of Applied Economic Research
The Chairman NABARD, Dr Harsh Bhanwala visited NCAER to discuss future work collabaration following the NABARD Chairpersonship of NCAER which that ended in 2014.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) Chair was set up at NCAER in August 2011. NCAER Senior Fellow Dr Anil K. Sharma was chosen for the NABARD Chair Professorship through a national, competitive, selection process. Under the terms of the MOU signed in July 2011 between the two national institutions, NABARD and NCAER, special research funding for the Chair Professor was made available to NCAER.
Among its many important roles as a refinancing agency for institutions providing rural investment and production credit and building institutions for improving the absorptive capacity for rural credit and its delivery, an important role for NABARD is also to promote research and capacity building in agriculture and rural development. It is this broad concern that the NABARD Chair professor at NCAER has sought to contribute to. The key objective of the NABARD Chair Professorship has been to encourage applied and empirical research of high standards in India to cater to the research needs of policy makers in promoting agriculture and rural development.
NABARD support for the Chair has been immensely valuable in sustaining the work that has been carried during the past three years – 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14. The NCAER-NABARD Chair has principally done work in two areas to meet its objectives as laid out above: first, making contributions in agriculture and rural development to apex policymaking or policy advisory bodies at the national level in New Delhi; and second, leadership of and contributions to NCAER research studies and analytical capacity building on agriculture and rural development. Much of these research activities were reflected in the Chair’s contributions to policy research conferences, workshops, and in the public media.
At its Board Meeting in May 2014, the NABARD Board decided to restructure its support for empirical and policy research and to therefore discontinue the four NABARD Chair Units established so far in the country on the completion of their terms. NABARD’s four-year support for the Chair at NCAER ended accordingly in July 2014. NCAER and NABARD have been in touch since then to explore areas of common interest and collaboration. The research paper by the Chair Professor on “Transformation in Indian Agriculture, Allied Sectors and Rural India: Is there less krishi in Bharat?” is one of the key outputs of the NABARD Chair at NCAER
