Changing Perspective on Rural Credit between Mid-80s and Mid-90s - Experiences of two West Bengal Villages

Credit is a ‘pure service’ transaction between two points of time rather than a spot market transaction in ‘pure goods’. Because of the time gap involved between sanction and realization of credit, the players in the market confront several kinds of risks, many of which are not independent of the socio-economic environment. Against the backdrop of the institutional changes in the form of establishment and strengthening of the Panchayats in rural West Bengal over the last two decades, the present study is an attempt to capture the attendant changes in rural credit market between mid-1980s and mid-1990s from the experiences of two villages in the district of Birbhum. In doing so, it compared the profile and mode of operation of prevailing moneylenders and lending institutions with those documented in an earlier study carried and in the same two villages and made an endeavour to find out as to whether the changes in the functioning of both formal and rural credit have led to greater accessibility to credit of the rural masses, a larger base for agricultural production through productive use of assets and ensuring better prices for farmers. The experiences of several successful multipurpose primary credit societies in India, the Indian Grameen Services, Hyderabad, the Bangladesh Grameen Bank and the Chinese Township and Village Enterprises are cited to provide some future guidance in improving the rural credit scenario in West Bengal.