ROLE OF RURAL COOPERATIVE CREDIT INSTITUTIONS TOWARDS AGRICULTURAL CREDIT IN INDIA

Abstract Sustainability of agriculture growth in India is crucial as almost half of the country’s population still depends on this sector for their livelihood. Flow of credit to agriculture plays a critical role in agriculture production in the country and hence in maintaining momentum of growth of this sector. Credit is one of the critical inputs for agriculture development. The flow of credit to the agriculture sector and rural areas is met through intuitional agencies like commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperative credit institutions. The short term, medium term and long term needs of the farming in rural community met by their credit institutions. The cooperative banks have played a dominant role in proving credit needy. The main objectives of the paper are to study the structure of cooperative credit institutions and role of short term rural credit cooperatives in providing agriculture credit in India. Secondary data have been used for the present study. At present there are nearly 93042 primary agricultural credit societies, 370 district central cooperative banks and 32 state cooperative banks working in India. Key words: Agricultural credit, PACSs, DCCBs,SCBs.