A study of financial performance of co-operative banks: Case of Poovarany Service Co-Operative Bank of Kerala, India

Agriculture plays a stupendous role and occupies a cardinal place in the Indian economy. The fact that half of the national income is being contributed by export of agro-based produces substantiates this point. Further, majority of the Country's people is depending on agriculture in one way or the other. Hence, the welfare of the people and their economic condition, and also the economic development of the Country depend, to a greater extent, on the output, progress and prosperity of agricultural sector. In spite of this significant role of agriculture, it is unfortunate to note the pathetic situation of agriculturists as half of the rural population live below poverty line and most of them remain indebtedness. One of the reasons for this has been on account of inadequate returns from agriculture sector. Besides, modernization schemes in agriculture resulted in the substantial increase in the investments on seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigational facilities, cost of labour and on laboursaving equipment. As a result, the financial requirement of farming-community has been increasing year after year on a consistently increasing basis. To put it differently, the farmers are in need of higher amounts of credit/loan for the purpose of undertaking agricultural activities. In this background, Co-operative Banks, based on their past performance, are recognized as the better institutions for the provision of sound and dynamic credit to farmers and as a case study, Poovarany Service Co-Operative Bank of Kerala has been selected for analysis.