115
this philosophy, the Committee had postulated that “the growth of agriculture
and small industry in India has now reached a point where the legitimate
productive requirements of these sectors (or large parts of them) could be
met by banks on the basis of their commercial judgement” (
ibid
, p.43). But,
the factual premises underlying this statement have been found to be invalid.
Vast segments of the agricultural sector have remained outside the reach of
the formal banking institutions, and in the meantime, the social philosophy
of an egalitarian pattern of development has acquired an added impetus in
socio-political undercurrents of the society due to acute and growing inequality
pervading the system. The Committee, however, believed that “the pursuit of
distribute justice should use the instrumentality of the fiscal rather than the
credit system” (
ibid
.p.42). But, history of country experiences has proved
beyond doubt that such rigid compartmentalisation of public policies can
never help achieve the objectives of distributive justice.
As brought out earlier, the Narasimham Committee-II (April 1998) was
not only satisfied with the widening of the scope of beneficiaries under the
Table 4.31: Third Set of Differences: Agriculture Credit Flows
(
`
crore)
Year
Nabard’s
RBI's Handbook Data Series
Difference
in Total
Credit
Percentage
Difference
Annual Report Data
Loans Issued
Flow of
Total GLC
$
Short-term +
Long-term
Direct Credit
Indirect
Credit
Total
Credit
1
2
3
4
5=(4-1)
1999-00
46268
45014
85624 130638 84370
182.4
2000-01
52827
47700
95304 143004 90177
170.7
2001-02
62045
53752
92081 145833 83788
135.0
2002-03
69560
65175
98412 163587 94027
135.2
2003-04
86981
83427
102502 185929 98948
113.8
2004-05
125309
105303
135860 241163 115854
92.5
2005-06
180486
144021
149818 293839 113353
62.8
2006-07
229400
189513
174506 364019 134619
58.7
2007-08
254658
194953
186056 381009 126351
49.6
2008-09
301908
245976
2009-10
384514
2010-11
468291
2011-12
509040
$ - covers crop loans and term loans including others; 'others' includes storage/market yards, forestry/
waste land development, RIDF, bullock & bullock cartsand bio-gas.
Source:
Col. (i) from NABARD’s Annual Reports
Cols. (2) to (4) from RBI‘s Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy, 2011-12., pp.136-137
