Trend and pattern on institutional credit to agriculture in India

Agriculture plays a crucial role in the development of the Indian. It accounts for about 19 percent of GDP and about two-thirds of the population is dependent on the sector. The importance of farm credit as a critical input to agriculture is reinforced by the unique role of Indian agriculture in the macroeconomic framework and its role in poverty alleviation Recognizing the important of agriculture sector in India’s development, the Government and the Reserve Bank India (RBI) have played a vital role in creating a broad-based institutional framework for catering to the increasing credit requirement of the sector. To overcome the defects of unorganized sector in the rural credit, NABARD was established 1982 and various reforms were also initiated. Though there is a full-fledged structure of rural credit in India, unorganized sector has major share in the rural credit. Due to dominance of unorganized sector in rural credit, Indian farmers faced lot of problems. Farmer’s suicide is the burning issue in India. Unorganised rural credit sector is one of the cause for farmer suicide in India. GOI announced the interest subvention scheme in the year 2006 -07 in order to provide incentives to the farmer for their prompt repayment of loan. In this backdrop, this study made an attempt to examine the growth and pattern of institutional credit to agriculture in India from 2006-07 to 2021-22.