Agriculture is the mainstay
of India, where two-thirds
of our population depends on it for their livelihood. The
requirement of funds for agricultural activities has increased
over a period of time, especially in rural areas as banks have been
unable to meet the growing demands for the credit requirements.
The problems of indebtedness and the dependency of the farmers on
moneylenders have also increased. To meet the growing credit
requirements, to decrease the dependency on moneylender, the
cooperative credit movement was initiated. The cooperative banking
structure in India has, thus, emerged to play an important role in changing
the socioeconomic landscape of the credit facility in
rural areas. Over the last few years, cooperative
banks have begun to play an important role in the
elimination of poverty and in facilitating various
socioeconomic developments.
The first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru, proposed a national policy on cooperative banking with a
strong belief on cooperative credit structure. In a seminar conducted
on cooperative leadership he said,"My outlook is to convulse
India with the Cooperative Movement to make it, the basic activity of
India, in every village as well as elsewhere; and finally, to make the
cooperative approach the common thinking of India. Therefore,
the whole future of India really depends on
the success of this approach of ours to these vast
numbers, hundreds of millions of people." The cooperative
societies have increased from Rs. 1.81 lakh in 1950-51 to Rs. 4.53 lakh
in 1996-97. The associates of cooperatives have also increased from
Rs. 1.55 cr to Rs. 20.45 cr in the same period. Cooperatives are
working in the various fields like production, and processing,
marketing, input distribution and are also providing credit to those living
in rural India. Figure 1 indicates the structure of the cooperative
credit institutions. |
