Miscellaneous

24 Mar Kisan credit card: A farmer friendly financial tool

किसान क्रेडिट कार्ड: एक किसान अनुकूल वित्तीय उपकरण Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy. Majority of farming communities earn their livelihood from agriculture and allied activities. They have small and marginal land holding resulting less saving and follow traditional practices. Generally, they used to invest money, borrowed from money lenders for meeting the cost of agricultural activities. The terms of lending by these money lenders were unfavourable and inimical to the interest of the farmers. Before independence, several steps were taken up in our country by the government agencies to help the farming communities. In independent India, major break through took place in 1969 after nationalisation of commercial banks  to make the benefits of institutional finance to reach a wider range of economic activities. The state Co-operative Land Development Banks were set up for refinancing of agricultural activities. In 1976, Regional Rural banks were set up to further strengthen it. Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme was introduced in August 1998. Today KCC has emerged as an innovative credit delivery mechanism to meet the production credit requirements of the farmers. As per, Barik (2010) National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)introduced KCC scheme to enhance flow of credit to the rural sector and reduce the dependence of farmers on non-institutional sources of credit. Uppal and...