Introduction

Indian banking system has emerged as a vibrant sector in the Indian economy. Strong regulatory mechanism, inherent strength in the economy, and progressive policy framework which supports, nurtures, and helps in growing the financial institutions. Indian financial services industry is dominated by the banking sector that contributes significantly to the level of economic activity. The banking structure in India is broadly classified into public sector banks, private sector banks and foreign banks. The public sector banks continue to dominate the banking industry, in terms of lending and borrowing, and it has widely spread out branches which help greatly in pooling up of resources as well as in revenue generation for credit creation. The role of banks in accelerating economic development of the country has been increasingly recognized since the nationalization This facilitated the rapid expansion of banking in terms of its geographical reach covering rural India, in turn leading to significant growth in deposits and advances. Eventually, however, the government used banking sector to finance its own deficit by frequently increasing cash reserve ratios (CRR) and statutory liquidity ratio (SLR). Deregulation of the Indian financial system in 1991 followed by various financial sector reforms during the period 1990 through 1998 led to a major restructuring of the Indian banking industry.
India has entered high growth trajectory with the initiation of economic reforms in the early 1990s with a policy shift towards free market economy. While on the growth front, the economy has performed considerably well, on the other hand the issue of distributional effects of growth has gained momentum in the academic and policy environment. Thus, in the eleventh and twelfth five year plans, emphasis has been laid to achieve sustainable economic growth with inclusive