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EXHIBIT - A
Agricultural Credit in India: Details of Cooperative Credit
A Research Study by EPW Research Foundation Cooperative Credit
Institutions
The
EPW Research Foundation
(EPWRF) began with an ambitious goal
of compiling time series data on the flow and outstandings of agricultural credit
from all short-term and long-term tiers of the cooperative sector for the research
project. We have faced a number of problems in this respect. First, it is found
that the official agencies compile the cooperative credit data for agriculture
and allied activities only from two tiers, namely, state cooperative banks and
central cooperative banks on the assumption that primary agricultural credit
societies (PACS) predominantly depend on refinance from upper tiers and they
hardly have resources of their own, which is by and large true. But, there are
considerable leads and lags in the ebb and flow of funds between PACS and
higher tiers of the cooperative sector and for want of details, we have not been
able to arrive at the concrete differences.
Secondly, the well-known publication
Statistical Tables Relating to
Cooperative
Movement in India
(Part I: Credit Societies)
is dated; what is
available in the public domain is almost a decade old, that is, for 1998-99.
Thirdly, there are two cooperative federations, which are primarily
sector supported (but also supported by the Government of India, through
some grants-in-aid), namely, National Federation of State Cooperative Banks
(NAFSCOB) and National Cooperative Federation of Agriculture and Rural
Development Banks (NCARDB Federation) do provide through their websites
stand alone data on different tiers of the cooperative sector.
EPWRF has collated these data with the initial objective of reconciling the
official series on crop loans issued in respect of agriculture, but we have failed
to achieve as yet this reconciliation. The data are presented in the following
sets of tables for ready reference as an academic interest.
