DOI: 10.4324/9781003434467-25 Chapter 23 An Evaluation of the Working of the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in India Govind Prasad Bhandari and Analjyoti Basu Introduction India is a country encompassed by villages, where 70% of the country’s total population lives in villages. 1 The significant population undeniably leads to the necessity of the development of rural areas. The necessity was felt after the independence. There was a need for programme and strategy develop- ment to uplift specific rural Indian groups that include small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers, artisans’ class, and socially and eco- nomically backward castes and classes. Further, a proper financial structure was needed to regulate the credit in the rural areas to better these sections (Pal and Sura, 2006). To get rid of the issues and problems, in 1975, the Narasimhan Working Group conceptualization RRBs was incorporated to deal with the rural credit. 2 The Regional Rural Banks Act, 1976 was implemented. 3 On 2nd October 1975, as Ahmad (1998) mentioned, five RRBs were created for the first time. It is more than 45 years of journey for the Regional Rural Banks (RRB) from 1975 to 2021. The ups and downs of the Indian economy impacted the RRBs. If the journey period of 45 years is visited, then in 1975, six RRBs had 17 branches, which increased to 196 in 1991. However, after that, the consolidation phase started in 2005, and the numbers of RRBs came down drastically to 82. 4 Another phase of amalgamation of the RRBs started in 2012, 5 and on 17th December 2020, the figure stands to be 43. 6 The discussion above focused on 45 years of RRBs that experienced a steady rise in numbers till 1991, followed by a consolidation and amalgam- ation phase leading to the fall of numbers for RRBs. So, there is a need to understand the scenario of RRBs at the time of consolidation and amalgam- ation. For it, there is a requirement to understand the profile networking of the RRBs; assess the non-performing assets, recovery, and borrowing position of the RRBs; and finally, investigate the profitability scenario of the RRBs in the country. Based on the need, the following objectives are framed. 02_9781032360898_p201-246.indd 236 02_9781032360898_p201-246.indd 236 11-Jul-23 00:10:23 11-Jul-23 00:10:23