As per S Akbar, Chief General Manager, who heads the NABARD 'S Madhya Pradesh Regional Office, NABARD has, to start with, sanctioned a grant assistance of Rs 51,36 lakhs towards the implementation of SRI project in three districts the state viz, Balaghat, Hoshangbad and Katni. These projects once commissioned shall directly benefit 1680 farmers, majority of them Marginal and Small farmers, cultivating 576 Hectares of farm land. In addition to this, NABARD has also has decided to extend financial support of Rs o.80 lakhs to Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihood Project for conducting 04 exposure cum awareness meets ie Krishak diwas to promote System of Rice Intensification (SRI) in Shahdol district. NABARD has launched on ambitious project christened as System of Rice Intensification (SRI). The project aims to promote best agronomic practices among the farmers with the help of knowledge dissemination, technology transfer and adoption of best practices so as to achieve remarkably high per hectare production of paddy/rice. The beauty of the project is that it envisages increased harvest output with use of decreased farm inputs such as land, water and fertilisers. NABARD, being the apex Developmental Institution ( DFI) of the country has decided to provide grant assistance to partner agencies to promote this innovative project with an aim to gradually develop replicable models for rice cultivation in the entire country. The funding for this project has been lined up by NABARD from its Farmers Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF) which is a dedicated fund created by NBARD with a present corpus of Rs 65 crore to provide financial assistance for SRI type technology backed innovative projects all over the country.