Regional Rural Banks in Liberalized Environment

Rural development in India has remained on of the pertinent issues confronting the planners of the country. Since independence ample resources have been marshalled to uplift the economic condition of the rural masses. Despite various interventions from the Governments side the desired results are yet to be achieved. One of such measures was the strengthening of financial institutional network for rural areas. On this front the Government tried to supplement the earlier network for rural areas. On this front the Government tried to supplement the earlier network of commercial banks and cooperative banks with a new set of 196 Regional Rural Banks from the year 1975 onwards. RRBs are now three for nearly 30 years but many of them have not fulfilled the expectations of the rural people and of the planners. Most of them are reeling under huge accumulated losses and non-performing assets. In many states their profitability and viability are at stake and many of them are not worth continuing. Similar situation is also found in the North-East region. Since this region is predominantly rural in nature the performance of RRBs operating here are of crucial importance for economic empowerment of rural people and for a balanced regional development. Their financial parameters in almost all the states of this region that are on the verge of financial collaspe. With the help of a micro level study, both at corporate and branch levels, this book delves into this aspect of financial viability and profitability of these banks in the major state of this region, viz., Assam and tries to identify the important problems associated with the functioning of RRBs. Considering the dearth of research work in this region this book provides some genius insight into the functioning of the RRBs in particular and rural banking in general in the N-E region.

A.P. Pati(b. 1969), M. Com, M.Phil, LLB, ICWA, PhD (Commerce) from Utkal Universty, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, is a scholar in the area of Finance and Banking. Most of his works deal with institutional finance and related areas. He has completed a UGC project in this field. Many of his research articles have been published in journals of national and international repute. He has presented many research papers in various seminars and conferences. He is a member/fellow of many national and international bodies. He has been serving the North-East region for quite some time. Presently he is working as a Reader in the Department of Commerce, North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong, Meghalaya.