Bad loans in the farm sector grew over 23% in 2017, even as farmers defaulted on only 6% of their debts in contrast to 21% by corporate borrowers, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday, citing data from the Reserve Bank of India.
The lingering impact of demonetisation and the loan waivers some state governments announced for farmers are likely to have caused the spike in non-performing assets in the sector. Expectations of getting loan waivers make farmers default on more loans, an unidentified official at a central bank told The Indian Express.
Agricultural non-performing assets increased from Rs 48,800 crore in 2016 to Rs 60,200 crore in 2017, RBI data showed. The figure more than doubled since 2012, when it was Rs 24,800 crore.
Agricultural credit includes short-term crop loans and medium- or long-term loans to farmers. Defaults in such loans made up about 8.3% of the total non-performing assets in the banking sector till March 2017.
Farmers defaulted on about 6% of the total credit banks gave to them – Rs 9.92 lakh crore in 2017. The non-priority sectors got Rs 26.8 lakh crore in loans, but defaulted on 20.8% of them, the RBI data showed.
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