Commercial Banks and Agricultural Development

The performance of commercial banks in financing agriculture during the post-nationalisation period exhibited signs of large scale improvement in agriculture in the plain areas but this was no so in the hilly and drought-prone areas of the country. The present book is an attempt to study indepthly the role of commercial banks in promoting agricultural development in hilly and drought-prone areas. Accordingly the book makes an attempt to answer the following questions emerging out of the study: (a) Whether the present cropping pattern is adequate and what changes in the cropping pattern can be effected for the development of agriculture in such hitherto neglected area?, (b) Is the demand for credit by farmers, as distinguished from non-borrowers met by commercial banks?,(c) Have the farmers utilized the credit for the purposes for which they had been issued loans,(d) Did the farmers repay the loans taken from banks fully and timely,(e) What are the bottlenecks that affected the role of banks and the performance by the farmers handling agricultural credit;(f) What special measures are needed to improve the involvement of banks in the hitherto neglected hilly and drought-prone areas.The work is original and makes a pioneering effort to solve some of the vexed problems which had lingered in the minds of the scholars for a long line. The book is very useful to bankers, policy makers, statesmen, teachers of universities and researchers. In view of this, the study may be considered as a valuable addition to the existing stock of literature on the subject.