Regional Rural and Cooperative Banks: Notes and PYQs

The correct answer is A, 1982. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development began work in 1982, set up on the recommendation of the Sivaraman Committee, and it is the apex development bank for agriculture and the rural economy, refinancing and supervising both Regional Rural Banks and cooperative banks. Option B is wrong; 1991 is the year of the economic reforms and of the first Narasimham Committee on the financial system, not of NABARD. Option C is wrong because 1987 has no connection with the founding of this institution. Option D is wrong although it is the most tempting choice, since 2 October 1975 is the day the first five Regional Rural Banks were set up, seven years before NABARD came into being; candidates who remember only that rural credit began in the mid nineteen seventies fall into it. Keep 1975 for Regional Rural Banks and 1982 for NABARD.

The correct answer is B, the Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976. The first five Regional Rural Banks were created on 2 October 1975 by an Ordinance, and that Ordinance was replaced the next year by the Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976, which fixes their objects, capital and shareholding. Option A is wrong because the Banking Regulation Act of 1949 is the general law of banking in India and applies to these banks as it does to others, but it did not create them. Option C is wrong; the NABARD Act of 1981 set up the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, which supervises and refinances Regional Rural Banks rather than establishing them. Option D is wrong because the Cooperative Societies Act of 1912 belongs to the cooperative side of rural credit altogether. Keep the pair of 1975 for the first banks and 1976 for the Act.

The correct answer is C, thirty five per cent. The capital of a Regional Rural Bank is shared in the ratio of fifty, thirty five and fifteen: the Central Government holds fifty per cent, the sponsor bank thirty five per cent and the State Government fifteen per cent. Option A is wrong because fifty per cent is the share of the Central Government, and choosing it means reading the largest holder as the sponsor bank. Option B is wrong since fifteen per cent belongs to the State Government, the smallest of the three shares. Option D is wrong because twenty five per cent appears nowhere in this pattern and is put in as a plain distractor. After the amendment of 2015 such a bank may raise capital from other sources as well, but the three original holders together must keep at least fifty one per cent, so government control cannot be lost.

The correct answer is A, Prathama Bank. Prathama Bank, with its head office at Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh and sponsored by Syndicate Bank, was the first of the five Regional Rural Banks set up on 2 October 1975, and its name, meaning the first, is itself the hint. Option B is wrong because Haryana Gramin Bank came much later and is a product of the amalgamations that began in 2005. Option C is wrong; Kerala Gramin Bank was likewise formed by merging earlier banks of that state. Option D is wrong because Baroda Rajasthan Kshetriya Gramin Bank is also an amalgamated bank, and its name gives away the sponsor rather than the date. Since amalgamation keeps changing the list of Regional Rural Banks, learn the fixed facts instead: the first bank, the first date and the sponsor.

The correct answer is B, the Narasimham Working Group of 1975, which proposed a new kind of rural institution combining the local feel of a cooperative with the discipline of a commercial bank, and the first Regional Rural Banks followed on 2 October of that year. Option A is wrong because the Gorwala Committee, formally the All India Rural Credit Survey Committee of 1954, dealt with cooperative credit and state partnership in cooperatives. Option C is wrong; the Maclagan Committee of 1915 examined the working of cooperative societies in the colonial period. Option D is wrong because the Vaidyanathan Committee of 2004 recommended the revival of the short term rural cooperative credit structure. Note that the same name Narasimham also attaches to the two committees on banking sector reform of 1991 and 1998, so the year in the stem matters.

The correct answer is C, the Primary Agricultural Credit Society. In the short term cooperative credit structure the base is the Primary Agricultural Credit Society in the village, above it stands the District Central Cooperative Bank and at the apex of the state stands the State Cooperative Bank. Option A is wrong because the State Cooperative Bank is the top tier and deals with the district banks, not directly with farmers. Option B is wrong since the District Central Cooperative Bank is the middle tier. Option D is wrong because the land development bank belongs to the long term or investment credit structure, now called the Primary Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank at the base and the State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank at the apex. Remember that the long term structure has two tiers while the short term one has three; a paper often tests exactly that difference.

The correct answer is B, Anyonya Cooperative Bank of Vadodara in Gujarat, begun in 1889 as a mutual aid society among government servants and generally counted as the first urban cooperative bank in India, older even than the Cooperative Credit Societies Act of 1904. Option A is wrong because Saraswat Cooperative Bank of Mumbai, founded in 1918, is among the largest urban cooperative banks but not the first. Option C is wrong; Cosmos Cooperative Bank of Pune dates from 1906 and is therefore later than Anyonya. Option D is wrong because Abhyudaya Cooperative Bank of Mumbai is a twentieth century institution. The point worth carrying from this question is that cooperative banking in India is older than both the Reserve Bank and the first cooperative statute, which is why its law grew in pieces.

The correct answer is A, the Banking Regulation Amendment Act of 2020. It ended the loose half of the old dual control by placing all urban cooperative banks and multi state cooperative banks squarely under the supervision of the Reserve Bank, giving the Bank powers over their boards, their capital raising and their amalgamation, after a series of failures had hurt depositors. Option B is wrong because the Companies Act of 2013 governs companies and not cooperative societies. Option C is wrong; the Payment and Settlement Systems Act of 2007 is the law behind payment systems such as white label cash machines. Option D is wrong because the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act of 2002 deals with the registration and management of societies working in more than one state, which is the cooperative side of the dual control rather than the banking side.

The correct answer is C, Article 43B. The Ninety seventh Constitutional Amendment Act of 2011 inserted Article 43B in the Directive Principles, asking the State to promote the voluntary formation, autonomous functioning, democratic control and professional management of cooperative societies. The same amendment added the words cooperative societies to the right of association in Article 19 and inserted a new Part Nine B. Option A is wrong because Article 41 concerns the right to work, education and public assistance. Option B is wrong; Article 43A, on the participation of workers in the management of industry, was inserted by the Forty second Amendment. Option D is wrong because Article 48A, on the protection of the environment and forests, also came with the Forty second Amendment. Remember too that in 2021 the Supreme Court left Part Nine B standing only for multi state cooperative societies.

The correct answer is C, seventy five per cent. A Regional Rural Bank must lend seventy five per cent of its total outstanding advances to the priority sector, a far higher share than other banks carry, because these banks exist to serve small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers, artisans and small entrepreneurs. Option A is wrong, and it is the intended trap, because forty per cent of adjusted net bank credit is the priority sector target for domestic scheduled commercial banks generally. Option B is wrong since sixty per cent is not a target set for any class of bank in this context. Option D is wrong because ninety per cent would leave a bank almost no room for other lending and no rule requires it. Learn the two figures as a pair, forty per cent for commercial banks and seventy five per cent for Regional Rural Banks and small finance banks.