Even before the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) finalizes the guidelines for handing out new bank licences, its draft proposal has evoked unease in the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), which oversees the country’s 82 regional rural banks (RRBs). Nabard has taken exception to the banking regulator’s proposal to allow industrial houses to take over RRBs and convert them into full-fledged banks, saying such a move could dilute...

According to the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) data on loans given out by nationalised and cooperative banks, there are more farmers doing agriculture in Delhi than Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal. The farmers in Delhi were allotted loan of Rs 22,077 crore in 2009 alone at mere 5% rate of interest, which is the second highest after agriculture-rich Punjab. Delhi’s loan disbursal amount is bizarre,...

Eminent economist and Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board Prabhat Patnaik said on Saturday that the euphoria in official circles over financial inclusion has risen because of the “systematic scaling down of institutional Credit to the peasantry and other productive sectors in the last two decades”. Delivering the centenary lecture dedicated to the memory of Prabhat Kar, a pioneer of the trade union movement in the banking industry, Mr....

Vice-President M Hamid Ansari today said it is "anomalous" that over 250 million Indians were chronically undernourished although the nation has achieved self-sufficiency in foodgrain production. "This is anomalous looking at record food grain production in recent years," Ansari said quoting Food and Agriculture Organisation reports while delivering the convocation address at the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) here. Stating that the country has achieved self sufficiency in food grain...

Public uproar over 20 suicides in two months has forced the Andhra Pradesh government to act to regulate micro-finance institutions. On October 14, the state government brought an ordinance making it compulsory for MFIs to register themselves, declare the effective rate of interest they charge, ensure that no security is sought for loans and no coercion is used for recovery. Non-compliance will be punished with a three-year prison term and a...