Agricultural credit

Since its inception, RBI has shown keen interest in agricultural credit and maintained a separate department for this purpose. RBI extended short-term seasonal credit as well as medium-term and long-term credit to agriculture through State level co-operative banks and Land Development banks. Three Tier Cooperative Credit Structure NABARD State Cooperative Bank Central Cooperative Bank Primary Cooperative Society Banking At the same time, RBI has also set up the Agricultural Refinance Development Corporation (ARDC) to provide refinance support to the banks to promote programmes of agricultural development, particularly those requiring term credit. With the widening of the role of bank credit from “agricultural development” to “rural development” the Government proposed to have a more broad-based organization at the apex level to extend support and give guidance to credit institutions in matters relating to the formulation and implementation of rural development programmes.