Financial liberalization after 1991 damaged the formal system of institutional credit in rural India severely. It represented a clear and explicit reversal of the policy of social and development banking, and contributed in no small way to the extreme deprivation and distress of which the rural poor in India have been victims over the last decade. The papers in this volume, theoretical and empirical, examine the implications of financial liberalization with respect to rural credit. The theoretical papers deal with the macro-economic and structural effects of neo-liberal financial policy on the rural banking system. The empirical papers, both secondary data-based and village-level case studies, show that changes in national banking policy have had a rapid, drastic and potentially disastrous effect on the debt portfolios of rural households, particularly the income-poor. Although it is clear that chronic indebtedness among the rural poor is a problem that cannot be solved by banking policy alone, and that the abolition of usury requires agrarian reform and major public investment, a decisive change in banking policy is essential for the very survival of the working people in rural India.V.K. Ramachandran and Madhura Swaminathan are economists and Professors at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.The strength of the book lies in its good analytical papers on policies and rich material from village studies.The Hindu

Until recently the use of agricultural credit as a developmental tool seemed clear and straightforward. Most concerned people believed that increases in the volume of cheap credit were necessary to boost agricultural production, and that the rural poor could be brought into the mainstream of development through supervised credit programs. It seemed that certain ideal types of rural credit institutions offered the promise of meeting farmers' credit needs, and that experience in the industrialized countries with cooperatives and specialized agricultural finance institutions could be effectively transplanted to low-income countries. This collection of readings highlights facets of rural financial markets that have often been neglected in discussions of agricultural credit in developing countries. It moves beyond a narrow concern with the simple provision of credit to a broad consideration of the performance of rural financial markets and of ways to improve the quality and range of financial services for low-income farmers. It reflects new thinking on the design, administration, evaluation and policy framework of rural finance and credit programs in developing countries.

At head of title: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the macro- and micro-level issues associated with agrarian distress. It analyses structural, institutional, and policy changes, highlighting the failure of public support system in agriculture. The crisis manifests itself in the form of deceleration in growth and distress of farmers. The case studies from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Punjab bring out the diversity of conditions prevalent in the states.

This book examines the Recent Trends and Patterns of Agricultural Credit in India during the Post-reforms period, one of the defining aspects of the current phase of globalization and economic reforms is the increased threat to the livelihoods of small farmers in developing countries. There are instances of this across the developing world, from 1998 until the present; thousands of small farmers have committed suicide in India. For the proper functioning of an agriculture system farmers need to use many inputs. One among them is credit. It is considered as an important part in the development of agriculture. The study is exclusively based on secondary data. The data have been collected from various issues of Report on Currency and Finance (RBI), Banking Statistics (RBI), Report on Trends and Progress in Banking in India (RBI), RBI Bulletin (RBI), NABARD, various rounds of NSSO, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Statistical Outline of India (Tata Services Ltd.) and Economic Survey (Government of India). The main objective of this book is to provide students and instructor with clear, up-to- date and sample and straight forward approach to learn about agricultural credit. It may helpful for research all. I appreciate to all the people who and thanks is diversity or indirectly involved to help and publish this book.

This volume critically examines the notion of a ‘new’ India by acknowledging that India is changing remarkably and by indicating that in the overzealous enthusiasm about the new India, there is collective amnesia about the other, older India. The book argues that the increasing consolidation of capitalist markets of commodity production and consumption has unleashed not only economic growth and social change, but has also introduced new contradictions associated with market dynamics in the material and social as well as intellectual spheres.

This paper traces the story of Indian financial sector over the period 1950–2015. In identifying the trends and turns of Indian financial sector, the paper adopts a three period classification viz., (a) the 1950s and 1960s, which exhibited some elements of instability associated with laissez faire but underdeveloped banking; (b) the 1970s and 1980s that experienced the process of financial development across the country under government auspices, accompanied by a degree of financial repression; and (c) the period since the 1990s till date, that has been characterized by gradual and calibrated financial deepening and liberalization. Focusing more the third period, the paper argues that as a consequence of successive reforms over the past 25 years, there has been significant progress in making interest and exchange rates largely market determined, though the exchange rate regime remains one of managed float, and some interest rates remain administered. Considerable competition has been introduced in the banking sector through new private sector banks, but public sector banks continue have a dominant share in the market. Contractual savings systems have been improved, but pension funds in India are still in their infancy. Similarly, despite the introduction of new private sector insurance companies coverage of insurance can expand much further, which would also provide greater depth to the financial markets. The extent of development along all the segments of the financial market has not been uniform. While the equity market is quite developed, activities in the private debt market are predominantly confined to private placement form and continue to be limited to the bluechip companies. Going forward, the future areas for development in the Indian financial sector would include further reduction of public ownership in banks and insurance companies, expansion of the contractual savings system through more rapid expansion of the insurance and pension systems, greater spread of mutual funds, and development of institutional investors. It is only then that both the equity and debt markets will display greater breadth as well as depth, along with greater domestic liquidity. At the same time, while reforming the financial sector, the Indian authorities had to constantly keep the issues of equity and efficiency in mind.

Ensuring accessibility to credit to the poor self-employed households is a critical concern for many developing nations. Self-help groups (SHG) formed by women in the developing countries help them to access financial intermediaries and access credit for various income-generating activities. In case of India, SHGs are formed either through state-assisted SHG-Bank Linkage Programme (SBLP) or through private initiatives of micro finance institutions (MFIs) or NGOs. Under the former, the groups access formal banking directly while in case of MFIs, loan is disbursed through MFIs themselves. Rate of interest in case of loans obtained by SHGs through SBLP, therefore, depends on the rate of interest charged by the various types of formal lending agencies and is often found to be lower than the interest charges of the MFIs. It is, however, argued that transaction costs involved in a bank loan are substantial, therefore, borrowers prefer loans from the informal sector, delivered at the borrower’s doorstep. In order to examine this issue rigorously, we have tried to estimate the effective costs towards borrowing by including the transaction costs, estimated using quantitative data collected through our survey. Our results show that the transaction costs contribute only marginally to the cost of borrowing, hence, we argue (using field data) that the programme, which has many additional benefits including ensuring financial inclusion of women and empowering them, should be strengthened and expanded further.