Page 48 - BANKING FINANCE NOVEMBER 2023

ARTICLE

Average Land Holding with Farmer as per The government of India is more focused on providing
financial assistance to the agriculturists of the country. To
agriculture census 2015-16 (Provisional)
facilitate banking in the unbanked areas, the RBI introduced
S.no State Avg Area landholding "No frills a/cs", "Zero balance savings a/cs", "financial
(in Hec.) inclusion", "financial literacy", "collateral-free loans",
"margin-free loans", special schemes like "Mudra",
1 Uttar Pradesh 0.73
"interest-free subsidies," etc. Ultimately, the Banking
2 Bihar 0.39
industry tries to bring everyone under its fold and reach the
3 Andhra Pradesh 0.94 poorest section of society.
4 Odisha 0.95
5 Tamilnadu 0.75 The Indian Banking system is one of the most well-
established financial systems in the world. The banks are
6 West Bengal 0.76
well distributed to cater to the needs of the last village, and
7 Kerala 0.18
the following table depicts the number of bank branches in
8 Jammu & Kashmir 0.59 India and its categorization.

The above-listed states are considered to be large states Table 1: No. of Scheduled banks in India
where the average land holding is very small, so it is very well
understood that the dependency merely on farm income as of March 1, 2023
cannot suffice the needs of the families. Therefore, there are Scheduled Banks No. Branches
two options available to the families: one is migration, which
is very common, and another is to evolve modern technology Public Sector Banks 12 91490
and improve the productivity of the small landholding farmers. Private Sector Banks 21 30690
Regional Rural Banks 43 21756
Initiatives of the Government and the Urban Cooperative Banks 1531 NA

Banks to cater the financial needs of the Rural Cooperative Banks / 97006 NA
rural areas Societies

Figure 1: Breakup of Indian farming community and lending types

BANKING FINANCE | NOVEMBER | 2023 | 43