Meaning and Definition of a District Central Co-operative Bank

A District Central Co-operative Bank (DCCB) is a co-operative bank established at the district level whose main members are the primary co-operative societies of that district, and whose chief work is to finance those societies — meeting their credit needs, holding their surplus funds, and connecting them with the State Co-operative Bank above. In short, it is the district's own bank for its co-operative societies.

The word 'central' in its name does not mean the central government; it means that the bank is the central financing agency for the whole district — the one institution to which every primary society in the district looks for money. There is normally one DCCB for each district (in some states a few districts may share one), and it works only within the boundaries of that district.

Unlike an urban co-operative bank, whose customers are individual townspeople, the main members of a DCCB are institutions — the primary societies themselves (agricultural credit societies, marketing societies, processing societies, housing societies, urban banks and so on within the district). For this reason a DCCB is often called a 'federal' or 'central' co-operative — a co-operative of co-operatives. Alongside the societies, individuals may also be admitted as members and the bank may deal with the general public, but its defining relationship is with the primary societies of the district.