Agricultural Credit Flow and Infrastructure in India - An Insight

Given the strong backward and forward linkages of agriculture with the overall Indian economy and its sheer scale, a strong growth in agriculture has the potential to catapult the Indian economy to well past 10.0 per cent growth trajectory, which would lead to higher income for farmers, generate more employment opportunities and sharply reduce poverty. It is our belief that for India, a rapid growth in the rural economy overall, and sustainable growth of agriculture, is highly feasible and may hold the key to addressing India's problems of growth and poverty eradication. However, for this to happen, key ingredients would be an adequate supply of credit, development of required market infrastructure and the availability of tools for the management of considerable risks that agriculture is exposed to. There is wide variation in credit disbursement and market infrastructure development across different states and regions of the country. Thus, the present study was planned to analyze the causes of such vast variation. The findings of the study can be useful to the policy planners and executors to make suitable corrective measures to rectify the discrepancies occurred in this field.