Establishment of the Agri-clinics and Agri-business Centres (ACABC) Scheme was launched in April, 2002 with the following objectives:
(i) To supplement efforts of public extension by necessarily providing extension and other services to farmers on payment basis or free of cost as per business model of agri-preneur, local needs and affordability of target group of farmers;
(ii) To support agricultural development;
(iii) To create gainful self-employment opportunities to unemployed agricultural graduates, agricultural diploma holders, intermediate in agriculture and biological science graduates with PG in agri-related courses.
Salient features of the scheme:
(i) Two months’ training is imparted to eligible selected candidates through Nodal Training Institutes identified across the country [identified by The National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE)} under the ACABC scheme. This is followed by one year of hand holding.
(ii) National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is the implementing agency for disbursement of subsidy and monitoring the credit support to agri-clinics through commercial banks.
(iii) The scheme has a provision of credit support (start up loan) upto Rs.20 lakhs for individual project and Rs.100 lakhs for a group project. Financial assistance is provided through commercial banks (public and private), Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), State Cooperative Banks.
(iv) There is a provision of Credit linked back-ended upfront composite subsidy on the bank loan availed by trained candidates under the Scheme. The subsidy is 44% in respect of women, SC/ST and all categories of candidates from North-Eastern and Hill States and 36% in respect of other categories.
(v) Since inception of the scheme, a total number of 61987 candidates have been trained and 26183 of them established agri-ventures up to December 2018. These agri-preneurs services to farmers are also required to disseminate agriculture information on knowhow and agricultural technology to the farmers.
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Revised Guidelines 2018-2019