EVOLUTION AND STATUS OF CREDIT TO INDIAN AGRICULTURE

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1 215 EVOLUTION AND STATUS OF CREDIT TO INDIAN AGRICULTURE K.V. Praveen, K. Inbasekar, and P. Anbukkani Division of Agricultural Economics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-12 Abstract This paper attempts to review the evolution of institutional credit flow to agriculture in India, and study its status and growth in different time periods. Secondary data from different official publications are used in the study. Tabular analysis, compound growth rates, correlation analysis and pooled panel data regression are used to meet the objectives. The total agricultural credit showed an increasing trend in all the time periods considered in the study. Highest growth in total agricultural credit was achieved in the Post-2000 period, followed by Post- liberalisation. Among different size classes, the number of marginal and small farmers depending on institutional credit increased at faster rate than that of other classes. Credit positively affects the agricultural Gross Domestic Product and is also positively correlated with food grain production. Indebtedness was found to be high for states that received highest volume of institutional credit. The procedure for availing credit should be simplified and an improvement is required in the multi-agency network of credit delivery to agriculture in India. Highlights Marginal farmers reported highest growth in availing of credit Credit significantly increased agricultural GDP Indebtedness are prevalent more in states receiving high volume of credit Key words: Agricultural credit, Indebtedness, Panel data regression, Kisan Credit Card, India Credit played importantpart in the progress of agriculturein India by aiding the small and marginal farmers to adopt improved technologies. Flow of credit despite ensuring the resilience of Indian farmers in the wake of frequent droughts and floods, also increased their marketable surplus. It is well accepted that credit is a good incentive to the farmers for improving their production. It affects the agricultural production both directly and indirectly. Credit supports the farmers in the purchase of seeds, fertilizers, labour, etc. thus impacting the process of cultivation directly. Besides this, it is also required forthe construction of farmsheds, and doing such activities related to marketing, storage and processing of agricultural produce effectively, thus helping the farmers indirectly to increase the overall farm profitability. The credit requirements of the Indian farmers in the decades of 1950s and 1960s were primarily met from the informal sources. The centre, after considering the compulsion of well-timed credit delivery

2 216 to the farmers for good crop production, programmed and implemented several policies and established formal institutions. Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development are few such institutions that worked along with Regional Rural Banks, Cooperative Banks and several other Scheduled Commercial Banks to deliver credit to the needy farmers. Thus credit delivery to Indian agriculture became multiagency activity. Besides the pan-india presence of these formal institutions, inequalities developed among regions, states and farmer categories. Agriculturally developed regions and states along with some classes of farmers were able to make use of these facilities while several other eligible ones could not. Inequality in credit distribution also increased over time and there existed a widespread negligence towards traditionally under-developed regions. This is a concern that has gained the attention of state and central government, policy makers and researchers. Regarding the utilization of credit, most of it was used forpurchase of manures and fertilizers. Irrigation and seeds are other major inputs that got adequate credit in India (Singh and Mruthyunjaya, 1992). Optimizing the use of resources in agriculture was a major concern in both small and large farms. With better credit delivery and improvised technologies, all classes of farmers were able to achieve this in both irrigated and unirrigated farms. Crops that require more investment but which are more remunerative also emerged with higher credit flow thus bringing a change in the cropping pattern also (Poddar et al., 1995). Credit is a part of the total agricultural investment, and thus higher credit indicates an overall improvement in the provision of inputs, which will improve the productivity (Sriram, 2007). Agricultural credit is primarily of two types, these are direct credit and indirect credit. Earlier one is provided directly to the farmers to aid in the crop cultivation, whereas the later one is provided to institutions that support agriculture. Direct credit include short term, medium term and long term loans, whereas the indirect credit includes the funds to fertilizer subsidies, Food Corporation of India, Warehouses etc. Studies suggest that direct agriculture credit has an immediate, positive and statistically significant impact on agriculture output (Daset al, 2009).Formal credit also contributed significantly to promote the use of improved inputs and better the private capital investments (Sidhu et al., 2008). Some studies alsoindicated a negative association among agricultural credit and agricultural development. Agricultural credit even though increased the input use and bettered the private investment in livestock and implements, its impact on output is not thatbig (Binswanger and Khandker, 1992).The limitations that exist in the formal credit could be understood from the fact that raising credit could not successfully increase the value of output from agriculture (Mohan, 2006). Anegative relation between credit and crop productivity was suggested by correlation analysis. Its impact on crop productivity is also not significant (Elumalai, 2011). All these issues suggest that

3 217 further improvement in credit delivery is required since the gap between cost of agricultural inputs and supply of short term credit was increasing (Chand, 1992). With this contrasting background, this paper attempts to briefly trace out the evolution of agricultural credit and analyseits status and growth. The effect of credit on agricultural production, and the issues related to farmers indebtedness and lacunas in credit disbursement in India is also investigated. Data Sources This study focuses on the performance of agricultural credit in three periods Viz., pre-liberalization period ( ), post-liberalization period ( ) and post-2000 ( ). State level analysis is conducted for the period 1980 to 2010 based primarily on secondary data published from various sources like Reserve Bank of India, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Fertilizer Association of India etc. The agricultural credit data obtained from Reserve Bank of India was divided by Gross cropped area to arrive at per hectare agricultural credit. Among the variables used for analysing the impact of agricultural credit on agricultural production, road density is expressed as percentage of length of road in kilometre to total area of the state in square kilometres and fertilizer per hectare is calculated by dividing total fertilizer consumption by gross cropped area in the state. While urbanization is measured as the percentage of urban population in total state population, the annual mean rainfall data from Indian Meteorological Department, Government of India is used to represent rainfall. Another important variable used in the study is irrigation intensity which is calculated as percentage of area under irrigation to total cropped area. The extent of farm indebtedness was compiled from Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers, NSS 59 th Round, Methodology The performance of agricultural credit by various lending institutions was assessed by compound annual growth rate. The Pearson correlation coefficient analysis was conducted to find the linear association between food grain production, fertilizer consumption, irrigation and pesticide usage. With substantial within state changes over time, the estimation for a panel data on states for the case of credit is based on the pooled panel data regression specified as in equation (1): R it = α + γx it + ε it (1) In equation (1), the dependent variable R it is the agricultural gross domestic product at prices in state i at time t. The coefficients of interest are those on measures of agricultural development such as agricultural credit, fertilizer consumption, road density, urbanization and mean annual rainfall (included in X it ). Results and Discussion

4 218 Evolution of Institutional Credit to Indian Agriculture Agriculture is a way of living in India and the tradition that it holds dates back to centuries. Indian agriculture is depended heavily on the fertile lands irrigated by monsoon along with a well spread river system. Indebtednesscrawled into the farming community of India owing to the intermittent failure of monsoon and the disadvantage that it caused to the crop production. This was a serious concern even during the British era and the then government was compelled to provide credit assistance to farmers during the drought years. The Cooperative Societies Act passed in the 1904 institutionalised the disbursement of credit to farmers through establishments known as cooperatives. The structure of cooperative credit was then improvised to a three tier one through the setting up of cooperative banks in the provinces. Later the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was established in the year Agriculture credit department of the RBI harmonized all the agricultural credit activities in the country. All India Rural Credit Survey of 1954 stressed the importance of better rural credit facilities in the country, and this lead to the establishment of State Bank of India in The reforms in the banking sector of India from late sixties till eighties granted impetus to the commercial banks for providing agricultural credit. Several ameliorations and improvements in the credit system, like the priority sector lending and lead bank scheme of 1969, came as a sequel to these efforts. All these attempts however were not enough to push the agricultural credit to the required level. The neglect of agriculture sector by the banks which concentrated more on the industries, and the declining capacity of the farmers to purchase the inputs during the green revolution era was serious concern to the policy makers. Search for an institutional innovation to resolve these issues lead to the setting up of Regional Rural Banks in Later in the year 1982, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) was established. Since its establishment NABARD is providing credit for the promotion of agriculture in India and it also refinances the rural institutions of finance. Micro-credit in rural India through the concept of Self Help Groups (SHG) is one among the several efforts of NABARD to meet its objectives. The financial reforms of the early nineties made its mark in the agricultural credit also by deregulating the interest rates of cooperatives, RRBs and commercial banks, setting up of cautious norms of accounting, higher refinance, etc (Mohan, 2004). Recent efforts to improve the delivery of institutional credit to Indian agriculture includes the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) Scheme and SHG s- Bank Linkage Programme. In the year the KCC Scheme was initiated primarily to enhance the ability of the farmers to purchase farm inputs. The Pan India scheme is accomplished throughthe banking network that includes Commercial Banks (CB), Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRB). The credit distributed through the scheme is available for all classes of farmers and it could be used to meet the

5 Bank Loan (Crore Rupees) Number of SHG's (in Lakh) South -Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (SAJMS) ISSN: :SJIF:2.246:Volume 3 Issue agricultural and consumption needs. Even though KCC as a creditinnovationis becoming very popular and successful, it cannot be said to be fool proof. The inclinationin providing the credit through the scheme, on the basis of size of holding and caste, has to be taken care of immediately (Kumaret al, 2011). Another concern which has come while executing the scheme is complexity in the procedure. Sufficient training should be imparted to the borrowers regarding procedural formalities of financial institutions could be helpful in increasing their access to KCC scheme Bank Loan (in Crore) Number of SHG's (in Lakh) Figure 1.Performance of Self Help Groups The SHG - Bank Linkage Programme is another novel approach for providing financial services, to benefit the poor, while creating capital assets. After , the number of SHGs linked and loan amount disbursed to them show exponential increase (Figure 4). Studies done to find out the impact of this programme on credit delivery have arrived at promising results. The SHG units massively assisted and cheered the poor by making them a role player in the progress of the rural society. The need to oversee the running of the SHGs closely is however required from the part of the parent agencies. Legal stature could be provided to better their operations (Sita et al., 2011). The Union Budget also reflects the importance of agricultural credit as perceived by the government. A totalof Rs. 8 lakh croreshave been set aside in the budget for agricultural credit. Sufficient credit will be disbursed through NABARD to five lakh joint farming groups. A Long Term Rural Credit Fund is decided to be set up for refinancing Cooperative Banks and RRBs with an initial corpus of Rs. 5,000 crore. Apart from this Rs. 50,000 crore and Rs. 200 croreare allocated for Short Term Cooperative Rural Credit, and NABARD s Producers Development and Upliftment Corpus (PRODUCE) respectively.

6 220 Status and Growth of Agricultural Credit in India The credit supply to Indian agriculture has grown over the years and more importantly a transformation has occurred in its structure. After the nationalisation of commercial banks, the money lenders and landlords who were the supreme credit source for the farmers were replaced to a considerable extend by the institutional sources. Table 1 presents the sources of rural credit (which mainly comprises of credit for agriculture) in India over the years. The institutional agencies which disbursed only 7.2 per cent of the total credit in the year 1951 has surpassed the non-institutional agencies after the social and development banking policies in the decade of sixties. Growth in the credit disbursement of cooperative societies and commercial banks has contributed heavily to this achievement. The credit from non-institutional agencies even thoughdecreased, still contributed around 43 per cent in The number of operational holdings that took institutional credit increased from 1.19 crores to 2.52 crores between and (Table 2). The per cent growth in the size groups that took institutional credit is highest for marginal holdings followed by small ones which is cheerful. Around 1.26 crore marginal operational holdings took institutional credit in , compared to 0.04 crore large and 0.21 crore medium holdings. This clearly indicates the increasing access to credit for marginal and small farmers with the institutionalisation of agricultural credit. Table 1. Structural transformation in the sources of rural credit in India (per cent) Source of credit Institutional Agencies Government Co-op. Society/bank Commercial bank incl RRBs Insurance Provident Fund Others institutional agencies Non-Institutional Agencies Landlord Agricultural Moneylender Professional Moneylender Traders/Commission Agents Relatives & Friends Others Total Source: Pradhan, 2013.

7 221 The total agricultural credit, which includes both direct and indirect credit has shown an increasing trend from the pre and post liberalization and post-2000 periods (Table 3). The inter-state disparities were however more during the pre-liberalization period (Khan et al., 2007). Highest growth in total agricultural credit was achieved in the Post-2000 period, followed by Post- liberalisation (Table 4). During pre-liberalization period, credit growth was higher for SCBs followed by RRBs. The Postliberalization period witnessed 24 per cent growth in credit disbursement by RRBs. However, the period after 2000 indicated higher credit disbursement growth for SCBs. Table 2. Number of operational holdings availing institutional credit (Crores) Size group (ha) Percent growth Marginal (below 1.0) Small ( ) Semi-medium ( ) Medium ( ) Large (10 and above) All groups Source: Authors calculation based on GoI, 2014 Table 3. Institutional credit for Indian agriculture (Rs crores) Direct Indirect Year Loans issued Loans outstanding Loans issued Loans outstanding Source: RBI, 2014 Table 4. Compound Growth Rate of Agricultural credit disbursement during different periods (per cent) Period Co-operatives SCBs RRBs Total Pre-Liberalization ( ) 10 (10) 15 (20) 11 (26) 12 (15) Post-Liberalization ( ) 18 (13) 18 (9) 24 (15) 18 (11) Post-2000 ( ) 11 (4) 34 (28) 29 (24) 24 (19)

8 percent South -Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (SAJMS) ISSN: :SJIF:2.246:Volume 3 Issue Note: Figures in parenthesis are growth rates for outstanding amount Source: Authors calculation based on RBI, 2014 The components of the social and development banking of 1969 including the compulsory opening of four rural branches per opening of an urban bank, priority sector lending and differential interest rates were denounced by the advocates of financial liberalisation in the early nineties. The disbursement of credit to agriculture was affected slightly during the nineties due to the policy reversal from the part of the government. The comprehensive credit policy started in 2004, however brought back the momentum to the credit disbursal. The intention of the government though this policy was to achieve a growth of at least 30 per cent in the credit flow to agriculture every year. From onwards, the actual agricultural credit disbursement is higher than the target level (Table 5). The highest increment (31 per cent) was observed in the year followed by (28 per cent). The scheduled commercial Banks (SCBs) and Co-operative banks (CBs) contributed88 per cent to direct agricultural credit in as presented in the figure 2. Before , cooperatives dominated agricultural lending, but after Commercial Banks emerged as major agricultural credit provider in India. The share of Regional Rural Banks also has increased from 4 per cent in to 12 per cent during Co-operatives SCBs RRBs Figure 2.Shares of Various Agencies in Total Agricultural Credit (%) Source: RBI, 2014 The direct institutional credit to agriculture comprises of both short-term and long-term credit. The short-term credit which is provided to the farmers to meet their immediate financial needs in the cropping season is important for the success of crop in a particular year, on the other hand long-term credit is very important to make farming a sustainable one. In the year around Rs.346 thousand crores was disbursed as short-term and Rs 107 thousand crores as long-term direct loan to agriculture.

9 223 The long-term credit to agriculture besides showing an increasing trend, also changed the composition of end uses considerably (Table 6). During , high tech agriculture accounted for 24 per cent of total long term credit, which increased to 62 per cent during This is a reflection of the diversification policy of the government towards more remunerative horticulture sector. The changing consumption behaviour of both, the urban and rural population towards high value horticulture commodities and the growth of agro-processing industries are the factors responsible for attracting term credit to this sector. While the long-term credit to minor irrigation drastically reduced from 9 per cent ( ) to 3 per cent ( ) that to farm mechanization, animal husbandry and land development did not changed much. Table 5. Target and Achievement of Agricultural Credit Flow in India (Rs. Crores) Year Target Achievement Percentage achieved Source: Ministry of Finance, Table 6. Long Term Credit Disbursed to Agricultural Sector by Financial Institutions (Rs. Crores) Sub-sectors Minor Irrigation Land Development Farm Mechanisation Plantation and Horticulture Animal Husbandry Fisheries Hi-Tech Agriculture Other Total Source: Ministry of Finance,

10 224 Effectof Credit on Agricultural performance The effect of agricultural credit on the performance of agriculture was assessed by using correlation and regression analysis. It was found that agricultural credit has strong positive correlation with the other major inputs like fertilizer and irrigation along with food grain production (Table 7). The result supports the fact that the increase in food grain production is brought about by the increased use of cafeteria of inputs that includes fertilizers, irrigation, pesticides and rainfall other than credit. To assess the causal relationship between agricultural GDP and agricultural inputs, pooled regression analysis was done with the state level panel data. It was found that urbanization and agricultural GDP are negatively associated. This is true since the urbanisation is and indicator of movement of the region from agriculture to industries. Credit was found to be positively associated with agricultural GDP and it also significantly affected it. This means that an improvement in agricultural GDP could be brought about by increasing the disbursement of credit to agriculture sector. The coefficient of determination (R 2 ) value indicate that only 36 of the variation in agricultural GDP is explained by selected explanatory variables, indicating strong endogeneity problem in assessing the impact of agricultural credit on agricultural GDP (Table 8). Table 7. CorrelationCoefficient between Food grain production and its important determinants: ( to ) Particulars Foodgrain Fertilizer Rainfall Credit Irrigation Pesticide Foodgrain 1.00 Fertilizer 0.583*** 1.00 Rainfall Credit 0.285*** 0.586*** Irrigation 0.794*** 0.725*** *** 0.317*** 1.00 Pesticide 0.577*** 0.382*** ** 0.528*** 1.00 Note:*** and ** indicate statistical significance at 1 % and 5% respectively Source: Authors calculation Table 8.Panel Data Regression Analysis (Dependent Variable: State wise Agricultural GDP) Variable ParameterEstimate Standard Error Intercept 26591*** Road Density Fertilizer (kg/ha) Urban (%) *** Rainfall (mm) 23.70** 9.33 Credit (Rs/ha) 0.407*** 0.09 R

11 225 Note: *** and ** indicate statistical significance at 1 % and 5% respectively. Source: Authors calculation Farmers indebtedness Indebtedness prevailing in the farming community is one factor that indicates the access to credit. Almost 49 per cent of households in India are indebted which reveals the issues regarding the availing and repayment of credit that farmers face. Based on the level of indebtedness, states could be classified into three categories viz. highly indebted, medium indebted and least indebted.among all the states, Andhra Pradesh topped in the indebtedness (82 per cent) followed by Tamil Nadu (75 per cent), Punjab (65 per cent) and Kerala (64 per cent). Most of the eastern India states like Manipur, Mizoram, Jharkhand and Assam showed less than 25 per cent indebtedness. Table 9.Extent of indebtedness Category States and percentage of indebted households Highly indebted Andhra Pradesh (82), Tamil Nadu (75), Punjab (65), Kerala (64), Karnataka (62), Maharashtra (55), Haryana (53), Rajasthan (52), Gujarat (52), Madhya Pradesh (51), West Bengal (50) Medium indebted Tripura (49), Odisha (48), Uttar Pradesh (40), Chhattisgarh (40), Sikkim (39), Nagaland (37), Himachal Pradesh (33), Bihar (33), Jammu & Kashmir(32) Least indebted Manipur (25), Mizoram (24), Jharkhand (21), Assam (18) Source: Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers, NSS 59th Round, 2003

12 226 Figure 3. Position of states based on institutional credit flow to agriculture (Rs lakhs) and number of indebted farmer households ( 00) Figure 3 projects the position of different Indian states based on the on institutional credit flow to agriculture (Rs lakhs) and number of indebted farmer households ( 00). The figure reveals that Andhra Pradesh, the state which received highest volume of institutional credit is the one which is most indebted. Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra could also be included in the same category. In such states, the farmers are not able to productively utilise the huge credit that they receive and repay the loan amount back. Some of the other states like Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Kerala disburse decent amount of credit to farmers, and their indebtedness level is not that disturbing. Interestingly, those states which inhabit least number of indebted farmer households, are the ones which do not disburse adequate institutional credit to agriculture. The target of the states should be to occupy the position of more credit flow and less indebtedness. Issues in Agricultural credit disbursement The issues in disbursement of credit to agriculture in India, helms from both, the supply and demand for it. There exist severalelementsthat curb the process of serene delivery of agricultural credit. The policies of government at different point of times along with the development of banking network and

13 227 other institutions of credit determine the quantum and efficacy of credit supply. Recovery rates of institutional agencies are less compared to the informal sources of credit in rural India despite the fact that the rate of interest is less in the formal. Fragile chunk of farmers belonging to SCs STs and OBCs and those with lesser holdings depend more on non-institutional sources (Kumar, 2010). The tenacious web of informal sources is the major snag to be overcome. Difficulties, that the marginal and small farmers in India face in meeting the requirements for availing institutional credit is another constraint. In several occasions, farmers fail to produce the collateral security insisted by the institutional agencies for credit. The complexities in the procedural formalities add to this. The number of rural branches that provide agricultural credit is inadequate, which dissuade the farmers to approach the formal credit sources. Also the attitude of some of the credit institutions towards resource poor farmers is not healthy. They consider the small and marginal farmers as non-credit worthy(birthal and singh, 1996).The institutional agencies in India have failed to understand the distinct credit needs of the tenant farmer category to some extent. The credit that they require will be less in volume but pressing. The multiagency system which was expected to fulfil the total credit requirements of Indian farmers has not performed up to the mark. A well thought improvement in the design and architecture of the formal institutional network is the need of the hour. These polished institutions should be then able to understand the nature and urgency of the credit needs of different categories of farmers and should reach them promptly (Satyasai, 2008). Conclusion The study traced the major landmarks in the evolution of agricultural credit delivery in India. Strong institutional movements have resulted in drawing out the informal sources of credit, like money lenders, to some extent. The early cooperative movement formed the base of formal credit delivery in India. The three tier cooperative structure of credit delivery, operated successfully along with RRBs, RBI, NABARD, SBI and other Scheduled commercial banks to increase the agricultural credit flow. The reforms in the banking sector which includes the social control and nationalisation of banks also contributed to it. The total agricultural credit, which includes both direct and indirect credit, has shown an increasing trend in all the time periods considered in the study. Highest growth in total agricultural credit was achieved in the Post-2000 period, followed by Post- liberalisation due to the credit pushing policies in these periods. The number of operational holding availing credit facilities also increased between and Among different size classes, the number of marginal and small farmers depending on institutional credit increased at faster rate than that of other classes which is delightful. A positive correlation exists between agricultural credit and food grain production. Also the agricultural GDP is positively affected by credit. Indebtedness varied among different Indian states and it was found to be high for states that received highest volume of institutional credit flow. The

14 228 marginalised classes of the society like SC/ST, OBC, and the small and marginal farmers access to institutional credit needs to be further improved. More schemes like that of Kisan Credit Card and SHG-Bank Linkage programme should be developed. In order to extent the credit availability and accessibility to small farmers, the Government should redesign the institutional network in such a way that the complexities in the procedural formalities are reduced and the rural branches could positively reach all the farmers on time. References Binswanger, H. and Shahidur Khandker The Impact of Formal Finance on Rural Economy of India. World Bank, Working Paper No Birthal, S. and Singh, R. P Access of rural households to institutional credit: A study in Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Agricultural Economics Research Review9 (1): Chand, Ramesh Agricultural Credit in India: Distributional disparities and overdues. Agricultural Economics Research Review 5(2): Das, Abhiman, Manjusha Senapati and Joice John Impact of Agriculture Credit on Agricultural Production: An Empirical Analysis in India. Reserve Bank of India Occasional Papers30 (2): Elumalai, Kannan Relationship between agricultural credit policy, credit disbursements and crop productivity: A study in Karnataka. Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics 66 (3). GoI Input survey. Available at Viewed on Khan A.R., Tewari S.K. and Shukla, A.N Effect of liberalization on institutional agricultural credit flow and its relationship with average cost of cultivation in Indian Agriculture. Agricultural Economics Research Review20 (2): Kumar, Anjani, Chitra Yadav, Shiv Jee, Sant Kumar and Sonia Chauhan Financial innovation in agricultural credit market: Progress and Performance of Kisan Credit Card. Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics66 (3). Kumar, Anjani, Singh, K.M., and Shradhajali Sinha Institutional credit to agriculture sector in India: status, performance and determinants. Agricultural Economics Research Review 23(2): Ministry of finance Annual Report Available at /AnnualReport pdf. Viewed on Mohan Rakesh Agricultural Credit in India:Status, Issues and Future Agenda. Reserve Bank of India Bulletin, November. Pp: Mohan, Rakesh Agricultural Credit in India Status, Issues and Future Agenda, Economic and Political Weekly, 41: NSSO Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers: Indebtedness of Farmer Households. Report No.498 (59/33/1), Government of India.

15 229 Poddar Rajendra, S., Vijaya Kumar, H.S., Shankara Murthy, H.G. and Venkatesh Murthy, T.N Impact of Credit on cropping pattern and cropping intensity on farms in unirrigated and irrigated villages in Bijapur district of Karnataka An Application of Linear Programming technique. Agricultural Economics Research Review8(1): Pradhan N.C Persistence of Informal Credit in Rural India: Evidence from All-India Debt and Investment Survey and Beyond. RBI Working Paper Series, W P S (DEPR): 05 / RBI Handbook of statistics on Indian Economy Available at 20on%20Indian%20Economy. Viewed on Satyasai.K.J.S Rural credit delivery in India: structural constraints and some corrective measures. Agricultural Economics Research Review21 (2): Sidhu.R.S., Kamal Vatta, and Arjinder Kaur Dynamics of institutional agricultural credit and growth in Punjab: contribution and Demand-supply gap. Agricultural Economics Research Review21(2): Singh, S.P., and Mruthyunjaya Impact of short-term credit on income and employment of marginal and small farmers of Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh. Agricultural Economics Research Review 5 (1): Sita Devi, Prbakar, C., and Ponnarasi, T Impact of Microfinance Innovation in Pushing Back Rural Poverty in Tamil Nadu. Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics 66 (3). Sriram, M. S Productivity of Rural Credit: A Review of Issues and Some Recent Literature. Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Working Paper No