BANKING TRADE AND COMMERCE

INTRODUCTION

THIS CHAPTER IS DIVIDED INTO TWO SECTIONS. The first section, viz., Banking and Finance, describes the banking and financial institutions in Kolaba district in their historical and structural aspects. As such, this section gives narration of indigenous banking, joint-stock banking, co-operative finance and the state of indebtedness in this district. The second section, viz., Trade and Commerce, is devoted to the analysis of the historical and structural aspects of trade and commerce in the district. It also describes the extent and volume of import and export trade, wholesale trade, regulation of agricultural marketing, co-operative marketing and the various agencies engaged in trade and commerce.

SECTION I : BANKING AND FINANCE

This section of the chapter describes the functional aspects of the various economic and credit institutions that form the economic system of the district. The latter include the money-lenders, the co-operative societies, the joint-stock banks and companies, the Life Insurance Corporation and many other agencies directly undertaken, controlled or regulated by the Government.

Since the publication of the old District Gazetteer of Kolaba and especially after the close of the Second World War, the economic system of our country underwent remarkable changes. This district, too, shared the far-reaching effects of these changes. The age-old institution of money-lenders, for example, which was once the only prominent source of credit to a large section of the agricultural population has gradually paled into insignificance. Instead, the modern organised banking system has come to the fore. Since Independence quite a large number of Governmental agencies have been put into operation to extend financial assistance to the different units in the agricultural and industrial spheres at the district. Co-operative movement which has also flung far and wide has touched almost all the economic activities of the people. The structural changes it is undergoing have made the co-operative movement set itself on a sounder footing and strengthen its organisation.

With Independence the Government began to take active interest in public affairs. New policies were chalked out, new laws were administered and new schemes were formulated all with a view to enhance public welfare. This sort of increasing intervention of the Government into public life resulted in a gradual expansion of the public sector and a simultaneous shrinkage of the private sector. These manifold changes, significant as they are, not only affected the size and structure of the credit institutions functioning in the district, but they also affected and regulated the conditions of their working.

No study of finance would be complete without the consideration of these crucial changes coming over the field of finance and exercising their impact on the economic system as a whole. The section also gives a brief account of some of the schemes recently introduced by the Government to augment its financial resources such as the Small Savings Movement and the establishment of the Life Insurance Corporation of India.

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