প্রতিষ্ঠানের তথ্য

প্রতিষ্ঠানের নাম: Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB)

সংক্ষিপ্ত নাম: BRDB

বিস্তারিত দেখুন: Cooperative movement in the Indian sub-continent was emerged at the close of the 19th century out of the benevolent intention of the then ruling government to halt the deterioration condition of rural peasantry on account of mounting load of rural indebtedness. The agriculture was not developed at that time and majority of the farmers were dependent on borrowing from village money lenders. Framers could borrow by mortgaging their land to the village money lenders as this was the only collateral available for the farmers. In the year 1895 Mr. Nickolson, a collector in Madras presidency wrote a detailed report recommending establishment of Raiffisen type village bank or savings and credit society. According to the Nickolson proposal, on March 25,1904 the Cooperative Credit Societies Act was adopted for the supply of agricultural credit. India was partitioned in 1947 and the cooperative movement suffered for lack of efficient management and became financially weaker, consequently the apex cooperative bank became the property of India. As a result the farmers of former East Pakistan faced a lot of suffering. In 1948, The East Pakistan Provincial Bank (Now The Bangladesh Samabya Bank Ltd.) was set up for the east part of Pakistan. Since then various attempts were made for reconstruction and improvement of the cooperative system. But the activities of the societies were limited only to the disbursement of agricultural credit rather considering the livelihood development of the farmers. Researchers had started to find the solution of the problems of rural backwardness searched and for multi- sectoral approach rather than isolated efforts. Having this in view an experiment was carried out in the early sixties in the then Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (now BARD) under the dynamic leadership of Dr. Akhtar Hamid Khan. Mr. Khan had evolved an integrated a model for suitable rural development and started for piloting which was named as “Comilla Model”. Comilla Model consists of 4 components The main theme of Comilla Model was that the rural villagers will not feel for a better change until and unless they couldn’t be able to develop leadership among themselves. For this reason, the salient feature of Comilla Model was to create leadership and it was done through formation of village level cooperatives. The four components of Comilla Model were; Thana Training & Development Centre (TTDC) Rural Works Program (RWP) Thana Irrigation Program (TIP) Two-tier Cooperative Structure. Up to 1970, the Comilla Model of rural development was in operation in 20 thanas of comilla district and 3 thanas of outside Comilla. After the liberation of Bangladesh, in 1971, two tier cooperative systems, of Comilla Model was adopted as a national rural development program in Bangladesh. Working Procedure of IRDP The main working procedure of IRDP was to form primary cooperative society in the village level which was called Krishak Samabya Samity (KSS) and federated the KSS in the Thana/Upzilla level called Thana Central Cooperative Association (TCCA). Main functionaries of two tier cooperative system Supervised Credit System: A significant feature of IRDP was supervised credit system linked with the agricultural input supply & marketing. Training and Extension: Impart of training on Income Generating Activities (IGA) to ensure that the disbursed credit was utilized for the said productive purpose. Capital formation: A systematic and continuous saving program as a part of credit discipline to liberate the farmers from clutches of the money lenders. Additionally this habit would help the farmers to depend on their own capital rather depending on the external credits. Marketing Program was introduced to ensure fair and economic price of the products to the growers. Comilla model was designed as an experimental program for Rural Development. On successful experimentation the Government put it on a national program to replicate the two-tier co-operative system throughout the country under the agency of Integrated Rural Development Program in 1971. IRDP since its journey in 1971 and based on its success and also to achieve the rural development efforts to be more accelerated, IRDP was converted as “Bangladesh Palli Unnayan Sangasta in 1973. But the recommendations from the donor side liked that without having more time to get result from this model, it was not wise to convert the IRDP into a government organization like “Bangladesh Rural Development Sangasta”(BPUS). On the basis of the recommendations from donor agencies, the “Bangladesh Rural Development Sangasta”(BPUS) was again reverted as IRDP in 1974, just after the ten months of the announcement. After that, an evaluation programs was jointly carried by the Government of Bangladesh and the World Bank in 1980 and the evaluation program recommended that the two-tier co-operative structure is a useful and effective device in implementing the government’s rural development program. On the basis of the recommendations the IRDP was upgraded into Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB) in 1982 through an ordinance. The role of BRDB since “Grow More Food” movement of seventeenth decades until today’s “Golden Ladder of Rural Development” was massively appreciated. Especially the role of BRDB during the seventeenth decades in doubling the agricultural production was publicly recognized. In that time, BRDB was able to distribute shallow and deep tube-wells. BRDB had taken various projects related to irrigation during the time of seventeenth to nineteenth decades. Moreover, BRDB has executed a number of successful programs in addition to its main activities like Women Development Program (1973), Youth Development Program (1978), Rural Poor Program (1984) etc. Some of the government organizations/agencies i.e. “Department of Women Affairs”, “Department of Youth Development”, “Palli Dariddra Bimochon Foundation (PDBF)” etc were established as a bi-product of BRDB activities. BRDB got an allocation of 32 million Taka from GOB in the head of “Revolving (Agriculture) Credit Program” in the fiscal year 2014-2015. This finance certainly added remarkable values in the field level activities of BRDB. During 1986-1995 a research was conducted with the joint initiative of BRDB, BARD, RDA, Bangladesh Agricultural University, JICA and Kyoto University of Japan and invented a sustainable rural development system called “Link Model”. This internationally recognized model has created a vertical linkage among the development workers and public representatives through Participatory Rural Development Project (PRDP) for the socio-economic development of the rural people. The main objective of “Link Model” was to implement all the development activities with the approach of “Bottom up Planning”. The main tool of this model is Union Coordination Committee Meeting (UCCM) which is a Mini-Parliament. This parliament has ensured peoples’ participation, transparency and accountability of all the development activities implementing in the local level. Following the success of PRDP, 3rd phase of the project is under processing. Besides, BRDB has been implementing some specialized projects to meet different goals and objectives like “Employment Guarantee Scheme for the Poor of Northern Region” for ensuring employment for the extreme poor of the northern part of the country, likewise “Minor Crops Production, Preservation, Processing and Marketing Program (MCPPP&MP)” to motivate farmers for cultivating minor crops i.e. ground nut, ginger, onion, oil seeds etc to save our foreign currency reserve. In addition, “Irrigation Expansion Project (IEP)” has taken to reactivate the inactive deep tube-wells. As recognition of these activities, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) survey which was committed in 2010 has mentioned that the contribution of BRDB in the country’s GDP was estimated at 1.93%. This working spirit was on in the fiscal year of 2014-2015. In accordance with the MDG, Vision-2021 and “National Sixth Five Year Plan”, BRDB has currently been implementing seven development projects.