Sustainable growth of a District Central Cooperative bank over a time span of 100 years is not a matter of joke; more so when the regime passed through two world wars and a post world war Great Depression ,affecting the economies of the whole world. In case of Burdwan Central Cooperative Bank Ltd. this was and this has been possible only because of a strong clientele base of the bank comprising of different cooperative units , meant for undertaking different activities of various natures under different nomenclatures .These cooperatives are mostly our client as well as stake-holders . Now let us see which cooperatives by and large have formed the estate of the bank; these are Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), Marketing Cooperatives, Handloom Cooperatives, Cold Store Cooperative Societies, Cooperative Transport Societies, Weavers’ Cooperatives, Consumers’ Cooperatives, Engineers’ and Labour Contract & Construction Cooperatives, Employees’ Credit Cooperatives, Industrial Cooperatives, Milk Cooperatives, Poultry & Live stock Cooperatives, Dharmagola Sambay Samiti, District Cooperative Union, Fishermen Cooperatives, Tribal Cooperatives, Urban Cooperative Banks, Housing Cooperatives and so many.

Cooperative is more a philosophy than a system . What does a true co-operator view? His vision is invariably towards a community, based upon equity, justice and equality. The crux of this philosophy is that where individual effort fails to achieve a mission, collective effort, on the basis of mutual cooperation , succeeds . And the ultimate goal is to ameliorate the standard of human living.

Now the blazing question, in context of any discussion regarding cooperative, invariably be how far the cooperative movement has been successful in achieving the goal stated above. We know pretty well that statistics makes us tired. But in order to look for the answer of the above question we can not but call up a small statistical information in respect of our District, reported by the Lead Bank for the year 2015-16. During the year 2015-16, quantum of loan disbursed in Agriculture and allied sector, by the banks operating in the district, comprising twenty six numbers of scheduled commercial banks , one Regional Rural Bank and three numbers of Cooperative Bank was Rs. 172927 lakh, out of which contribution of three numbers of Cooperative banks was Rs. 43331 lakh and that of our Bank was Rs. 37815 lakh . This implies that the share of Cooperative sector as a whole in farm-credit was 25% and that of the Burdwan Central cooperative Bank alone was 22%. Moreover individual achievement of all other banks was perceivably far behind the achievement of the District Central Cooperative bank in this respect. But the statistics merely states that the Cooperative is playing wider role in deployment of its lendable fund to farm sector of the economy of the district. Does this unveil the fact that by the present role of the cooperatives, farming community has been placed in its ideal socio-economic state ? The answer is certainly “No”. Miles to go before it can relax. This has nowadays become a maxim in Indian context that ‘Cooperation has failed, but Cooperation must succeed’. There is no scope of denial of this? But we must fix our eyes on the latter clause of the so called maxim and we must believe deep in our heart that cooperation must succeed.

Now let us have a glance at the worth mentioning performance of The Burdwan Central Cooperative Bank Ltd. since its inception. The basic needs of human being are ‘ Roti, Kaprah aur Makan ‘ (Food/bread, Cloth/garment and House/shelter). The bank has been catering to these need for quite a long time.