Survey of Financial Services Extended to Farmers in Rural Areas: Facts and Myths a Ground Level Case Study of Sheloshi Village in Gagan Bawada Taluka in Kolhapur District

Financial services are pre-requisite for the transformation of the economy. A country like India where 60% of the population stays in rural areas, outreach of financial services is highly necessitated. Nearly 50% of the country's population is yet to be covered under the formal system of banking and at the other end lies the task to fulfill the needs of the existing customer particularly from rural areas.

The paper analyzes the network and quality of financial services provided under the Financial Inclusion in rural areas through the banks. The study mainly focuses on whether financial services are provided to the targeted group in rural areas. For this purpose information from all villagers of Sheloshi village has been collected to get the authentic inputs. The result indicates that financial services are not up to the mark and satisfactory. It will not be exaggeration to say that they are not provided even though there is a Kolhapur District Primary Co-operative Bank. These facts certainly have a major impact on the results of the study.