ASSESSING THE REGIONAL DISPARITIES IN PROVIDING AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BY SCHEDULED COMMERCIAL BANKS IN INDIA

Abstract

One of the primary objectives of growth and development for economic planning initiated after Independence has been reduction of regional disparities in social and economic development. To achieve this objective, investment by central government and Centrally monitored and regulated private sector investment played a crucial role. During the initial Five year plans, government focused on the growth and development of agriculture sector followed by industrial sector. In terms of institutional agricultural credit, co-operative banks played a major role as Regional rural banks and scheduled commercial banks came later. Agriculture sector requires heavy investment to purchase capital inputs to improve the production and productivity therefore largely dependent on credit. In this paper, the goa; and objective is to understand the regional disparity in the agricultural credit deployed by scheduled commercial banks.