KASHMIR- Getting Nowhere

reason behind nationalisation of banks in the late 1960s was to extend banking services to the rural areas. In particular, it was hoped (hat thereby the dependence for credit of farmers, especially small farmers, and rural artisans on moneylenders and usurers will be reduced substantially if not eliminated altogether It was for this purpose that the concept of 'priority sector' lending was evolved and banks were obliged to ensure that a certain minimum of their credit was channelled to those sections of the economy that would otherwise stand excluded. The winds of globalisation are threatening to undo what was possible to achieve over the past 30 years, and committee after committee is advising in favour of such reversal, even though it would mean throwing to the wolves the farm sector in general, and the poor and marginal farmers in particular, along with artisans and other rural poor.