HYDERABAD: CSR and agricultural development think tank institutions and leaders came together to discuss and find new ways for betterment of agricultural development through CSR partnerships at workshop organized by BIMTECH at National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Hyderabad.

V. Usha Rani, IAS, Director General, National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) today inaugurated a high level workshop on CSR and Agriculture Development.

While addressing the leaders, V. Usha Rani motivated the CSR and development leaders working on agricultural and allied areas to invest their CSR fund in enough amount to empower small and marginalized farmers.

She said that of course huge budget is required for agriculture sector to address the large population needs, but it is also important that small funds coming from CSR to the betterment of agriculture can make huge difference for people living in rural areas, particularly small farmers. Collective efforts are required to empower the agriculture sector.

Director General of MANAGE requested the concerned stakeholders to come together and join hands in the developmental process to enhance the farmer’s income and achieve an inclusive growth of agriculture. Govt. has the mission of doubling the farmers’ income by 2022.

Sharing her experience V. Usha Rani said, “Giving loan to the farmers is not a good solution. It is fact that marginalized farmers are not able to get loan offered by governments. We need to closely work with farmers.”

She hoped that workshop will have detailed discussion and deliberations about the success stories of CSR activities on agriculture, models, potential areas of investment, dynamics of partnership, and best CSR practices.

She said, “We need to realize the potential of agriculture in eradicating poverty and its impact to the lives. In order to address the challenges faced by farmers, both Central and State Govts. are making sincere efforts through various flagship programs with considerable public investment. Public investment alone is not sufficient to address the mammoth problems faced by the 58% of the population who depend on this sector.”

Usha Rani said, “Our agriculture has faced challenges due to decreasing soil health, depleting water table, extreme events on climate, market risk, inadequate finance and credit, inadequate quality extension support etc.”

Pratyush Panda, Corporate Head – CSR at ACC Limited spoke on possible outcomes of the workshop for larger good of agriculture sector.

N.N. Sharma, Associate Professor & Chairperson, India Centre for Public Policy (ICPP), Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH) gave an overview of regulatory framework of CSR and emerging trends, provisions of Section 135 of Companies Act 2013 and rules, trend analysis of performance during last two years and status of fund flow to agriculture sector and bottlenecks.

A participant, Dr R Murusesan, Professor at National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj said to India CSR “Lot of attention from corporates are required on agriculture development in India.”

Dr. N. Balasubramani, Dy Director at Manage thanked the participants for huge response to the forum.

2 days CSR workshop is being attended by around 100 large corporate, educational institutes, development agencies and Govt. representatives.

BIMTECH, Greater Noida, a premier management institute is key organizer of the forum with the active support of MANAGE, which has vision to be counted among the most pioneering, innovative, user friendly and self-supporting agricultural management institutes in the world.