THE DNA OF AGRI-FINANCE IN INDIA

As mooted by Indian government, agri-finance instrument would allow farmers to purchase agriculture inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and also allow them to withdraw some cash for meeting their other crop production related requirements. (Expert Committee, NABARD, 2010). Since then, the scheme of KCC is under implementation by State Cooperative Banks (SCBs) through DCCBs and PACS as also the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and Commercial Banks (CBs) under the agencies of NABARD, as on 31 March 2009, 828.7 lakh farmers were issued KCCs by various banks. Co-operative banks have the largest share (62%), followed by commercial banks (30%) and RRBs (8%). The performance in the implementation of the KCC scheme has been impressive6 in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal. Hence, an attempt was to assess the impact of kisan credit card scheme on short term agricultural credit in India. To conclude, the co-operatives dominated the other institutional agencies in the provision of short term agricultural advances in the pre Kisan Credit Card period till the year 1990-1991, after that, the scheduled commercial banks dominated the other institutional agencies. In the post Kisan Credit Card period (in many of the years) the Scheduled Commercial Banks dominated both co-operatives and Regional Rural Banks in both loan issued and loan outstanding (short-term). In the pre Kisan Credit Card period, the compound growth rate of short-term agricultural credit (disbursement) was higher for Regional Rural Banks compared to other institutional agencies. The exponential growth rate was also higher for Regional Rural Banks (16.45%). In the post Kisan Credit Card period, the compound growth of direct short-term agricultural advances was 33.58% for Regional Rural Banks.