In India, Commercial Banks are broadly divided into public sector, private sector and foreign banks. Public Sector Banks include the SBI and its associate banks numbering eight (8) besides nineteen (19) nationalised banks. Thus there are 28 public sector banks in India. The public sector commercial banks (PSCBs) have a wide network through out the country having large number of branches. It provides loans and advances to various categories of people under various schemes and these banks are very supportive to government for its development programs. In recent years, there have been...

Agriculture in India is one of the most important sectors of its economy. It is the means of livelihood of almost two thirds of the work force in the country and according to the economic data for the financial year 2006-07, agriculture accounts for 18 per cent of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). About 43 per cent of India's geographical area is used for agricultural activity. Women workers play an important role in agriculture sector. More than 60 per cent of the workers in agriculture sector are women. These working women in agriculture are exploited by various reasons. The most...

The importance of credit to rural sector is not debatable. This is especially true in the case of rural poor, who always find lack of finance as the main impediment in pursuing their economic activities. Therefore, an efficient and effective system of rural credit is necessary to sustain, stimulate and strengthen the rural sector. To serve this purpose more and more RRBs are being set up as is evident from their growth. The number of banks rose from 6 in 1975 to 196 in 2005 and their branches from 17 to 14762 covering 512 districts during the same period. Regional Rural Banks attend the...