Cooperative Credit Institutions in India: Strategic Actions to Improve their Working and Management

Abstract

The Cooperative Credit Institutions (CCI) with extensive outlets in rural India have completed 110 years in 2014. However, they have yet to achieve operationally viability and financially sustainability. This can be attributed to the complexities associated with the working of CCIs which have already been identified by several committees including the latest, the Vaidyanathan Committee on revival package on short and long term cooperative credit structure and appropriate recommendations have been made of which some on short-term credit structure are under implementation and those on long-term credit structure have yet to be implemented. Against this background, this article attempts to analyse the growth and development of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), State Cooperative Banks (SCBs), District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs), State Cooperative Agricultural & Rural Development Banks (SCARDBs) and Primary Cooperative Agricultural & Rural Development Banks (PCARDBs) as on 31st March 2014 for which the latest data are available and suggests the strategic actions to enable the CCIs to harness their potential for financial inclusion, agricultural & rural development and rural poverty alleviation.