There are also districts which are prosperous and where the agricultural labour may require consumption credit for four months when it gets into a seasonal unemployment situation. There is no reason why banks should not provide such credit to creditworthy agricultural labour if it can be done to credit card holders. With agricultural prosperity, many villages are growing into semi-urban centres.
Many studies have shown that the semi-urban areas are full of commercial potential. One has to recognise the increasing rural-urban continuum rather than persist with the old rural-urban divide and accordingly reorient the whole banking strategy. 3  BIS Review 18/2000  Regulation and supervision On the next theme of regulation and supervision, my colleague, Mr Muniappan had apparently very frank discussions.