The financial institutions aim at extending adequate and timely credit to the farmers to meet the crop production and ancillary activities. The present paper attempts to evaluate the efficiency of scheduled commercial banks in terms of lending volume to agriculture and their financial health in the state of Punjab. The location wise analysis brought out that the rural locations were the fore- runners in providing agricultural credit and meeting the targets of Reserve Bank of India regarding priority sector and agriculture sector lending. In case of both the banks (Punjab National Bank and State Bank of Patiala) more that 90 per cent credit was being diverted to priority sector and more than 85 per cent of the priority sector credit was being provided to agriculture. The rural branches had an edge over the semi-urban and urban branches justifying the first objective of nationalization of banks.
Volume 12 | 03-Special Issue
Pages: 1026-1033
DOI: 10.5373/JARDCS/V12SP3/20201348