Data on number of rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan branches of scheduled commercial banks in India are given in Table 1.1 of Basic Statistical Returns (BSR). The following table gives the data compiled from different issues of BSR.
Download csv file for this table from here.
Ramakumar and Chavan (2011)\cite{ramakumar2011} have pointed out that the branches are classified as rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan on the basis of census data. This classification changes over time as RBI moves from one round of Census to the next. As a result, a branch classified as rural in one year may be classified as semi-urban in subsequent years. This needs to be taken into account while analysing data on trends in number of rural bank branches.
