CONTRIBUTION OF NATIONALISED COMMERCIAL BANKS TOWARDS TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN AGRICULTURE - A STUDY OF DISTRICT SAHARANPUR

Abstract

After independence right from the starting of First Five year Plan the highest priority was given to agri culture and in every successive plans increasing amount of funds was allocated to agricultural sector. Advent of 'Grocn Revolution' in 1960 raised the use of high yielding variety of seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides/insecticides and modern implements/machinery. But the inadequacy of finance posed groat problem to the farmers in the adoption of modern technology. Co-operative societies proved to be inefficient and failed on rural financing front. Commercial banks were reluctant to share this social responsibility and were adopting conservative outlook regarding agricultural loans. Even the imposition of social control with an objective of providing succour to 'have-nots' and reducing the rift between rich and poor could not change the attitude of banks towards its goals. As such to set this problem on proper footing the Government of India nationalised 14 major commercial banks on July 19, 1969 and issued directives to increase the share of credit to the neglected sectors . The objective of the present study was to evaluate the contribution of credit disbursed by nationa lised commercial banks for the technological development of agriculture in District Saharanpur of Uttar Pradesh, India. IV In order to explore this the following criteria were adopted (i) critical evaluation of the existing pattern of advancing loans (ii) credit gap at existing and improved level of technology (iii) income earned by the borrowers before and after taking loan to compute the incremental income am (iv) to find out impediments to loaning, such as non-recovery of loans as well as buroocracy in loaning procedures. The study was conducted in two Tehsils of Saharanpur District. The borrowers were selected by adopting random sampling procedure. Among 150 borrowers 100 borrowers were selected from general productivity area and 50 from low productivity area. These farmers were interviewed to identify the factors relating to input, the processing of . output, incremental income and subsequently recovery of loan. After analysing the data it was concluded that after taking loan there was ageneral increase in cropping intensity, scientific orientation, yield and incremental income. The higher incremental income received by the borrower verified the significant impact of bank credit. This was found that farmers are showing growing conciousness about bank loaning, towards adoption of modern inputs and use of modem implements and machinery. s State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank were found to be pioneer in agricultural financing. But the amount provided by nationalised commercial banks was found insufficient to bear the increasing requirement of farmers owing to modern technology. The banks are not meet ing half of the genuine credit needs of farmers oven at existing level of technology. The major stumbling block for the banks, being unenthusiastic about rural credit, is the problem of low recovery. The main reason for this is the inadequate followup due to negligence, half-heartedness of bank personnel, insufficient and untrained staff. On borrowers' side the wilful default and growing political interference promoted non-recoveries. It was established that mere disbursal of credit can not bo panacea for all the problems facing agriculture. In the absence of proper recycling of funds the mounting overdues of agricultural advances made by banks are proving a serious bottleneck for further lending. Expert advice and continuing education is necessary to be imparted by bank official? while disbursing loan to bring out desirable change in the attitude of farmers.