Socio-Economic study of the Beneficiaries and Non-Beneficiaries of Kisan Credit Card Scheme in Kannuaj District of Uttar Pradesh, India

The studies of socio-economic characteristics of farmers are important for better policy options. The Kannuaj district of Uttar Pradesh is also an agriculture dominated region. Approximately 70% of the rural population of Uttar Pradesh is engaged in primary sector but at present agriculture sector is facing lots of problems such as credit, irrigation HYVs and other capital equipments etc. Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme playing a significant role in the development of agriculture Sector because the objective of the scheme is to eliminate exploitations of the farmers by the moneylenders by providing the farmers loans at cheaper rates of Interest. Kisan Credit Card (KCC) is very useful policy for rural development because these policy as the only medium of short-term credit for agriculture. From the year 1998-99, the scheme was implemented by public sector commercial banks, RRBs (Regional Rural Banks) and cooperative banks in the country. The present paper is aimed to study role of Kisan Credit Card scheme in the rural credit facilitation and impact of KCC scheme on socio-economic status of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in Kannuaj district of Uttar Pradesh. It is found that 36.08 per cent beneficiaries were from high socio-economic status group while 43.03 per cent beneficiaries were from medium and 20.89 per cent were in low socio-economic status group. In non-beneficiaries, 27.32 per cent were from high socio-economic status group while 37.34 per cent non beneficiaries were from medium socio-economic status group. 35.44 per cent non beneficiaries were from lower socio-economic group.