The concept of rural development was applied in early Fifties in many countries to increase the per capita income of rural poor. India’s economic development depends on the development of rural areas.In the early years, rural development was considered synonymous with the growth of agriculture and allied activities. Over the years, rural development has emerged as a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a group of the people, the rural poor. It involves extending the benefits of development to the poorest among those who seek a livelihood in the rural areas. India is a developing country and there is no doubt in this regard that Indian economy is rural dominated. In other words, we can say that India is a country of villages. According to the census 2001, 62 percent population lives in rural areas and a large number of rural people are still living below the poverty line (36%). The abject poverty, hunger, disease and human living conditions and the related problems of inequality and unemployment have been the well recognized the basic problems of rural economy since long time. So that, India’s development means rural India’s development and rural India’s development is impossible without eradication of rural poverty. Even after seventy-five years of the independence we have failed to improve the living conditions of India’s poor. The problem of deepening poverty has been the consequence of development strategies in which “We were laugh to take care of our GNP, since this would take care of poverty”. But this did not happen. Our sustained growth is still accompanied by continuing poverty and the process of growth have tended to increase relative inequality. The poor even today are powerless, resource less and income less to earn their basic necessities of life. “What is at stake in rural India is not a fair share of the land but a fair share of income and employment, education and social status. The chief problem of rural poor is that landless labour is also capital less, skill less, education less and status less labour”. Though huge public investment has been made on large number of rural development programme, yet these programmes could not cover all the sections and no significant improvement could be made in the living conditions of the poorest of the poor people in rural India. Rural development is not possible without the help of banking and financial sector. This book focuses on the role of banks in the development of rural areas.