Notwithstanding the above advantages, PACS were not formally recognized as Business Correspondents and were not formally integrated into the Financial Inclusion Programme (FIP) at par with commercial banks and Regional Rural Banks. The DCCBs were not allocated any villages despite the fact that a large chunk of rural population held their bank accounts in DCCB and SCB branches.
One reason is that these banks are not sufficiently technology-enabled to participate in the technology driven Financial Inclusion Programme. To redress this handicap, as part of its mandate of institutional development, NABARD has embarked on an ambitious effort to bring the cooperative banks on a common technology platform in a phased manner.