slow down in expansion of areas under irrigation. dwindling public sector control support for critical extension related activities and programme for land development and soil conservation are major gaps that need urgent redressal. these disparities in rural infrastructure too need to be addressed. 11. one significant component of rural finance is the value chain finance. it derives its significance from the fact that there are about 140 million farming households of which more than 80 per cent are small and marginal farmers. linking these farmers to formal financial services is a significant challenge. if agriculture has to support investment for the small and marginal farmers, promoting agri - business through development of value chains looks very promising. promoting agricultural value chains will bring about better market opportunities, technology adoption, private investments and reforms that would increase their access to finance besides significant positive impact on end - consumers in terms of reasonable prices of products. new generation private sector banks and foreign banks who have now priority sector obligations contribute a lot in this regard. nabard has in the recent past, conducted some ground level studies to understand the supply chain management issues related to onion, potato & tomato and is now according priority to warehouse funding and creation of cold storage capacities in the country, besides providing negotiable warehouse receipts to the farmers which, in turn, will prevent distress sale of farm produce by the farmers. 12. it is widely recognised that commercial interests of small - scale producers are best bridged by producer organisations including co - operatives and their federations. realising idfc rural development network ( 2013 ), india rural development report 2012 – 13. delhi : orient blackswan. bis central bankers ’ speeches the importance of collective investments in productive assets, government of india has set up equity grant fund for providing matching assistance and credit guarantee fund ( with 85 per cent default guarantee cover ) for financing farmer producer companies. the reserve bank has also included financing producer companies under the ambit of priority sectors. further, nabard has also constituted a producer organisation development fund with a corpus of ₹ 500 million for financing producer companies. need of the hour is to scaleup the operations of the producer organizations. hassle - free financial services to the rural sector 13. since independence, expanding the outreach of financial services to the poor has been at the centre of the poverty alleviation policy in india. the successive surveys of the national sample survey organisation ( nsso ) { all - india debt and investment surveys ( aidis ) } document a steady rise in the importance of banks as a source

crisis, no agency was explicitly granted a mandate for financial stability though the reserve bank acted as the implicit systemic regulator for the country. in 2004, well ahead of the crisis, the reserve bank formally added financial stability as a policy objective, in addition to price stability and growth, in view of the growing size and importance of the indian financial sector. the broad compulsions of financial stability have, in fact, bis central bankers ’ speeches underlined all major policy initiatives of the reserve bank especially since the balance of payment crisis of the early 1990s – much ahead of the articulation of financial stability as an objective. the reserve bank has, over the years, attempted to address both aspects of systemic risks – the time dimension ( which essentially refers to procyclicality ) and the cross sectional dimension ( which refers to interconnectedness ) within a macroprudential framework, without christening these policies as macroprudential policies. organisational developments within the reserve bank, over the last couple of decades, have also reflected the bank ’ s commitment to maintaining financial stability. two separate committees of the reserve bank ’ s central board, viz., the board for financial supervision ( bfs ) and the board for payment and settlement systems ( bpss ), are responsible for focused regulation and supervision of financial institutions regulated by the reserve bank and the payment and settlement infrastructure, respectively. towards ensuring a coordinated approach to the supervision of the financial system, a high level coordination committee on financial markets ( hlccfm ) was functional since 1992 with the governor of the reserve bank as chairman, and with representations from the sectoral regulators and the finance ministry. the hlccfm has now been replaced by the sub - committee of the financial stability and development council ( fsdc ). the fsdc is an inter agency forum set up in the wake of the crisis with a specific mandate, inter alia, for systemic financial stability. a sub committee of the fsdc, headed by governor, reserve bank, functions as the primary operating arm of the fsdc. the sub committee has also set up a dedicated crisis management framework to facilitate the handling of crisis situations, should they arise. post the crisis, in july 2009, the reserve bank set up a financial stability unit ( fsu ) with a mandate to, inter alia, conduct effective macro - prudential surveillance of the financial system on an ongoing basis to enable early detection of any incipient signs of instability. with