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Kerala State Cooperative Agricultural and Rural Development Bank has always been in the forefront of committed activities aimed at bettering the Social scenario of the village community. As the Apex body of the Primary Co-operative Agricultural and Rural Development Banks in the State, it has spear headed such programmes and streamlined them, right from its inception. The KSCARD Bank has, in fact, come a long way since the formative year when it focused primarily on the redemption of prior debts of rural farmer. The accent has switched over to the production oriented financing policy, which involves long term loans for development needs. The Bank has also diversified its activities and formulated various innovative loan schemes so as to achieve the prime objective of comprehensive agricultural and rural development.

 

The origin of KSCARD Bank can be traced back to 1931, the year in which the State Land Mortgage Bank started functioning in the erstwhile Travancore State. Subsequently Land Mortgage Banks were established in Cochin and Malabar as well. With the formation of the Travancore Credit Bank in 1938, the State Land Mortgage Bank merged into it. As a successor to the Travancore Credit Bank, the Kerala Co-operative Central Land Mortgage Bank (KCCLMB) was organized on October 4, 1956 and started functioning on 25th October,1956 . Before long, the Land Mortgage Banks of Cochin and Malabar were also affiliated to it. With the enactment of the Kerala State Co-operative Agricultural Development Bank Act on 30.07.1984, the name of KCCLMB changed to Kerala State Co-operative Agricultural Development Bank (KSCADB) and again to Kerala State Co-operative Agricultural and Rural Development Bank (KSCARDB) with the amendment of KSCADB ACT in 1990.

 

KSCARDB is the State level Apex organization of the affiliated 75 Primary Cooperative Agricultural and Rural Development Banks at taluk level . The loans are channelised through these PCARD Banks which have a network of branches and sub-offices to facilitate credit flow to the farmers and other rural folk at the grass root level. The Bank has a membership strength of above 12 lakhs consisting of both Borrowing and Non-Borrowing members, reaching out to about 13% of the State’s rural households . The lion share of our borrowers (nearly 80%) belong to the small and marginal farmer category and we are proud to service to a category of population in the lower income strata who cannot approach other financial institutions for their financial requirements.
Since inception, the bank is playing an important role in promoting capital formation in agriculture and rural sectors in the State through long term investment credit. In its early years, the focus of bank’s lending programme was financing of land based investments in the areas of land development, soil conservation, minor irrigation, Plantation/Horticulture, Farm Mechanisation etc. The bank was the only financial agency in the State for advancing Long Term developmental loans to farmers till 1970s. Even after the entry of Commercial banks in agriculture and rural finance, after nationalisation of banks in 1969 and setting up of Regional Rural banks in the State exclusively for rural financing, the bank continued its dominant role in advancing Long Term loans to farmers and other rural sectors. With the enactment of KSCARDB Act 1984, the bank diversified its lending portfolio encompassing development of rural Non-Farm Sector and rural housing in a big way.