Rethinking rural cooperatives: Rebuilding finance from the grassroots : Dr. M. S. Sriram

Dr. M. S. Sriram, Public Policy area, IIMB, examines the future of rural cooperatives in his latest Business Standard column, published on 4^th October 2026.

In ‘Rethinking rural cooperatives’, he argues that as regional rural banks consolidate and their commercial imperatives grow, India needs vibrant, self-governed primary cooperatives to serve the last woman in the remotest village. Drawing on successful models in Maharashtra, Kerala, Coastal Karnataka, West Bengal and Telangana, he proposes integrating district and state cooperative banks into professionally managed specialised regional banks, governed under Reserve Bank of India norms.