Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) are government owned scheduled commercial banks of India that operate at regional level in different states of India. These banks are under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. They were created to serve rural areas with basic banking and financial services. However, RRBs also have urban branches. The area of operation is limited to the area notified by the government of India covering, and it covers one or more districts in the State. RRBs perform various functions such as providing banking facilities to rural and semi-urban areas, carrying out government operations like disbursement of wages of MGNREGA workers and distribution of pensions, providing para-banking facilities like locker facilities, debit and credit cards, mobile banking, internet banking, and UPI services. History Regional Rural Banks were established under the provisions of an ordinance passed on 26 September 1975 and the RRB Act 1976 to provide sufficient banking and credit facility for agriculture and other rural sectors. As a result, five RRBs were set up on 2 October 1975 on the recommendations of the Narsimhan Committee on Rural Credit, during the tenure of Indira Gandhi's government. The purpose was to include rural areas into the economic mainstream since around 70% of the Indian population was rural. Prathama Bank, with head office in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh was the first RRB. It was sponsored by Syndicate Bank and had an authorised capital of Rs. 5 crore. The other four RRBs were Gaur Gramin Bank (sponsored by UCO Bank), Gorakhpur Kshetriya Gramin Bank (sponsored by State Bank of India), Haryana Kshetriya Gramin Bank (sponsored by Punjab National Bank), and Jaipur-Nagaur Anchalik Gramin Bank (sponsored by UCO Bank). The RRBs were owned by the central government, state government, and the sponsoring bank with 50%, 15%, and 35% shareholding respectively. Recapitalization A review of the RRBs in August 2009 by the Union Finance Minister revealed that a large number of RRBs had a low Capital to Risk weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR). A committee was constituted in September 2009 under the chairmanship of K C Chakrabarty, the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to analyse the financials of the RRBs and suggest measures, including re-capitalisation to bring the CRAR of RRBs to at least 9% in a sustainable manner by 2012. The committee submitted its report in May 2010. The committee recommended RRBs to have a CRAR of at