Report of the committee to review arrangements for institutional credit for agriculture and rural development (CRAFICARD)

We started our work with field visits in five states with a view to examining the actual field level conditions bearing on the implemen tation of the integrated rural development. We also held discussiona with officials and non-officials, and co-operative and commercial bankers, at the block, district and state levels. These field visits and discussions revealed, first, lack of satisfactory tie-up between credit and rural development programmes. Secondly, there were lacunae in evolving a reasonably effective plan of identifying beneficiaries programme-wise and monitoring its implementation. Thirdly, ar rangements to tie-up technical expertise with supply of inputs pointed to the need for improvement. Fourthly, while co-operatives continued to be pre-occupied with agriculture and land-based activities, due in part to statutory constraints, commercial banks also had not made their credit either multi-purpose or multi-term in many cases, area wise and family-wise. Finally, though the co-operatives were ex pected to avail of technical assistance for their lending from the con cerned government departments, there was actually no systematic and effective tic-up; on the other hand, the limited technical expertise available with the commercial banks was not always fully or profitably deployed. This appreciation of field situation by the Committee necessitated the organisation of a few field checks in select locales to identify the reasons for the prevalent conditions. It was clear that these checks would take some time to be completed and the Committee would not be able to formulate its recommendations on the first part of the assignment, as described in para 1.6, before the end of De cember 1979