112
accounts reported under the “priority sector” – both for direct and indirect
loans. There are two contrary pulls insofar as the numbers in the BSR data
are concerned
vis a vis
the numbers of accounts under ‘priority sectors’. On
the one hand, as explained above, loans given to trading activities concerning
input distribution under “credit for financing the distribution of fertilizers,
pesticides, seeds, etc.” stand excluded from agricultural advances under BSR,
which is not the case under “priority sector”. On the other, again as opined
above, the possibilities are that different types of loan accounts (crop loans,
term loans, etc.) are treated separately for number counting under the BSR,
whereas the “priority sector” loans probably treat each farmer-borrower as
a single loan account holder irrespective the numbers of loan accounts he/
she may enjoy. Despite loan accounts of a trading nature being excluded from
indirect advances under the BSR system of reporting, indirect loan accounts
are much larger in that data set than under “priority sector” advances. The
numbers of loan accounts are also much larger in direct advances under the
BSR system, probably explained by the separation of the types of loan accounts
described above. Thus, in March 2011, BSR data show the number of direct
advances at 40.89 lakh as compared with 33.21 lakh under the “priority sector”
in respect of public sector banks.
In amounts of loans, direct advances under BSR appear somewhat
higher at
`
325,008 crore at the end of March 2011 as compared with
`
300,190
crore under the “priority sector”, a contrary picture is observed in indirect
advances. Indirect advances appear considerably lower at
`
71,994 crore under
BSR as contrasted with the figure of
`
114,783 crore – more than one-third
lower. These differences cannot be fathomed with our knowledge of definitional
differences and thus they appear a mystery!
Second Set of Differences
Yet another set of differences in the same variety of agricultural credit
outstandings is to be found between the data put out by the RBI in its successive
issues of annual publication
Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy
which is supposedly the most up-to-date and those revealed by the RBI’s
Basic
Statistical Returns
of Scheduled Commercial Banks (BSR) which is said to be
the most authentic (Table 4.30). The definitional differences brought out in the
earlier paragraphs may explain some part of this set of differences too. It is
equally true that the higher amounts of
Handbook
series over the BSR series
cannot be explained by the definitional differences. Doubts do arise regarding
the quality of control returns which are the basis for the
Handbook
series.
