90
When such a comparison is made, there are three distinct scenario that
are discernible. First, the northern and southern regions, which are known
to be agriculturally advanced, house relatively smaller proportions of farm
households but account for relatively much higher absorptions of bank credit.
Second, there are the cases of three underdeveloped regions – the central,
eastern and north-eastern – which face a contrary situation: low level of bank
credit and high proportions of the number of farm households. Finally, there
is the western region wherein credit-farmer household relationships are
relatively more evenly distributed (except for loan accounts because of a higher
proportion of large size loans).
Nirupam Mehrotra (2011) is credited with bringing out yet another
picture portraying the nature of regional inequality in credit disbursements
against the background of a fresh set of real sector indicators, namely, share
in gross cropped area (GCA), share in gross irrigated area (GIA), and cropping
intensity (measured by the ratio of GCA to net cropped area). These data show
equally glaring inter-regionally disparities in bank credit disbursed in relation
to the potentials measured by physical indicators. Thus, the central region,
which accounts for over 27% of the country’s gross cropped area or nearly one-
third of the gross irrigated area, gets only 13% of ground level credit disbursed.
This is so despite the cropping intensity of the region being the third best
Table 4.19: Regional Distribution of Agriculture Credit during Tenth and
Eleventh Plan Period – All India (%)
Region 10th FYP
(Average
Share)
11th FYP
(Average
Share)
Share in GLC As
per Average Credit
Disbursed During
the Period 2007-08 -
2010-11
Share in
GCA
Share in
GIA
Cropping
Intensity
Northern
28.69
27.44
26.55
20.11
26.32
148.00
North-east
0.38
0.44
0.62
2.83
0.68
128.00
Eastern
6.67
7.27
7.59
14.66
15.25
151.00
Central
15.10
13.20
13.29
27.26
31.66
139.00
Western
14.17
14.10
3.83
16.47
9.74
114.00
Southern
34.99
37.55
38.19
18.68
16.36
124.00
All-India
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
100.00
GCA, GIA denotes gross cropped area and gross irrigated area, respectively. Both figures are average for
the four year period 2007-08 to 2010-11. FYP denotes five-year plan.
Northern region=Chandigarh, New Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, and
Rajasthan. North-eastern region=Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,
Tripura, Sikkim. Eastern region=Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Central region=Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal.
Western region=Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Gujarat, Goa, Maharashtra.
Southern region=Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu.
Source: Credit figures from NABARD and GCA, GIA from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Mumbai
