"If co-operation fails there will fail the best hope of rural India"- Royal Commission on Agriculture in India 1928 These brave words uttered almost eight decades ago still carry a prophetic ring. So much so that when the Vaidyanathan Committee, which studied this problem of rural credit, said rural credit was skewed in favor of the rural rich and this observation was reinforced by many other such studies, the Reserve Bank of India had to think of reinventing the institution of village money lender by lending him a measure of legitimacy. India has a chequered history of co-operative movement and this book is a journey into this exciting area of banking which accounts in volume for about a tenth of Indian banking. It tries to look at the genesis of the co-operative bank movement and its typical operational problems as perceived by practitioners, academicians and regulators. Co-operative bank failures have been a recurring problem in the 1990s and these problems are discussed and solutions offered in this book. Various studies as well as the economic history of co-operative banking in Canada and a host of European nations also prove that given the will, co-operative banking can be resilient, vibrant and yet fulfilling their historical role. Their unique contributions to green finance, triple bottomline financing, sustainable development, community development and SME financing are all captured in this book. The book leaves the reader wondering if Indian Co-operative banks can be made equally vibrant.
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