Punjab National Bank Continues to Bolster Agricultural Education and Training

Punjab National Bank (PNB), India’s second largest Public Sector Bank (PSB), has continued to focus on agricultural education and training to strengthen India’s primary sector and empower the farmer community. In addition to agriculture banking, the bank has continually focused at creating new avenues that can further provide support to the sector. As per a Board resolution, PNB has institutionalized cash rewards for top meritorious under-graduate and post-graduate students at top agricultural universities in India to provide encouragement to young minds. An annual scholarship outlay of INR 6, 00,000 /- has been set aside for this purpose. The bank already runs 12 Farmers’ Training Centers (FTCs) across the country to provide training facilities to farmers, women and rural youth. 

The bank will provide recognition to under-graduate and post-graduate students studying agriculture at the following six agriculture universities in India:  

• Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab

• Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, Bhagalpur, Bihar

• Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

• B.PantUniversity of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand 

• Sri, Karan NarendraAgricultural University, Jobner, Jaipur, Rajasthan 

• Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology 

PNB has institutionalized two categories of awards:  

• PNB Punjab Kesari Krishi Ratan Puruskar for under-graduate students. 

• PNB Lala LajpatRai Krishi SikshaSamman for post-graduate students. 

Two students – one under-graduate and one post-graduate student each – across the 6 colleges will form the 12-member cohort of toppers studying agricultural education. These students will be conferred a cash reward of INR 50,000 /- each to encourage them to continue to excel in the Indian agricultural sector.  

The bank also runs 12 Farmers’ Training Centers (FTCs) across India. This includes FTCs in Haryana (1), Punjab (2), Rajasthan (2), Uttar Pradesh (2), Chhatisgarh (1), Madhya Pradesh (1), Tamil Nadu (1), Orissa (1) and West Bengal (1). These FTCs provide free of cost training on Agriculture and Allied activities, Computer Applications, Cutting, Tailoring & Embroidery and Entrepreneur Development.