Composition of and trend in retail lending in district central cooperative banks of Punjab

As a result of financial sector reforms, technology outburst, prudential norms, customized central banking operations and a deregulated and market oriented banking system came out to be some of the main factors posing big challenges to the cooperative banks. Consequently, now alongwith agriculture credit, non-agriculture and other high yield advances are also a part of cooperative bank's diversified portfolio. As on today, the cooperative banks are at par with commercial banks in their product lines. In this article, a detailed analysis has been done relating to trends in the various retail loan schemes of the selected District Central Cooperative Banks of Punjab alongwith their scheme-wise proportionate share's in total loans and advances during the period of study. Lastly an attempt has been made to have an overall bank wise and component wise comparative analysis and pinpoint the major lacunas.