This page is informational and is not legal advice. It describes rules, orders and rulings as published or reported on the dates shown; read the primary text before relying on any of it.
At a glance
- Agents (reported)
- About 2 lakh, across roughly 16,000 credit co-operatives
- Families served (reported)
- About 1 crore
- Commission cap
- 2.5% from 1 April 2026, raised to 3% in June 2026
- Capping authority
- State Cooperation Department and Cooperation Commissioner
- Dominant institution type
- Credit co-operative societies and patpedhis
Maharashtra is the only state for which we have found a reported count of daily-collection agents, and it is the state where the economics of the job are regulated.
Reported figures put roughly two lakh agents across some 16,000 credit co-operatives, serving about one crore families. We have found no comparable published figure for any other state.
The commission cap, and the reversal
The state Cooperation Department capped pigmy agent commission at 2.5% for urban and rural non-agricultural credit co-operatives with effect from 1 April 2026. The order was explicit that commission is payable for mobilising deposits, not for assisting with loan disbursal or recovery.
Agents and their federations objected, and the Cooperation Commissioner raised the cap to 3% in June 2026.
Who bears it here
This is the one state where the question of who actually pays the commission is openly contested. The chairman of the state federation of credit societies is on record that the commission is typically borne by customers rather than by the institutions. The mechanism, whether a deduction from each deposit, a lower rate or a closure charge, is not documented anywhere we could find.
For banks the position is different and clearer: the bank pays the agent and the depositor's balance is not reduced. The distinction is set out in pigmy agent commission.
Institution types
Collection here runs predominantly through credit co-operative societies and patpedhis rather than banks. That is the important detail for a depositor, because a society is registered with the Registrar of Co-operative Societies rather than supervised by RBI, and its deposits are not covered by DICGC.