Rural cooperative banks are involved basically in the agricultural and allied activities. It means the cooperative banks play vital role in providing finance to the needy persons of the rural areas. The primary objective of rural cooperatives can be satisfied only in a case where the cooperative itself is feasible. The present study is conducted to elaborate the concept of rural cooperative banks and study their performance in terms of financial parameters and assets quality. For the present study secondary data have been collected from the website of Reserve Bank of India considering the period starting from 2005 to 2015. Data have been collected using Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India, RBI. It has been found in the present study that the risk factor is very high in case of Primary Co-operative Agricultural and Rural Development Banks and State Co-operative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks as these are mainly financed by the borrowed capital. The profitability position of long term rural co-operative banks is not so good, as both types of institutions have shown overall loss during the study period. The study states that the position of asset quality is not so clear because both the units are having a large amount of non-performing assets.

KEYWORDS: Rural cooperative banks, non-performing assets, financial parameters, borrowed capital