GUWAHATI, Feb 7 � It is estimated that around 52 per cent of the agricultural households in the country had an average outstanding loan of Rs 47,000 during the agricultural year of July 2012 to June 2013.
Assam had a share of 17.5 per cent indebted agricultural households in it, said a report of the National Sample Survey Organisation�s (NSSO�s) 70th round of National Sample Survey (NSS) held in January to December 2013, under the title of �Key Indicators of Situation of Agricultural Households in India,� which is available now with this newspaper. The report was made public in December, 2014.
Among the major states, Andhra Pradesh had the highest share of indebted agricultural households in the country (92.9 per cent) followed by Telangana (89.1 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (82.5 per cent). Jharkhand (28.9 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (37.2 per cent) were the major states with the lowest share of indebted agricultural households. The average amount of outstanding loan was highest for Kerala (Rs 2,13,600), followed by Andhra Pradesh (Rs 1,23,400), Punjab (Rs 1,19,500), Assam (Rs 3,400), Jharkhand (Rs 5,700) and Chhattisgarh (Rs 10,200) were the states with the lowest amount of average outstanding loan.
About 60 per cent of the outstanding loans were taken from institutional sources, which included government (2.1 per cent), cooperative societies (14.8 per cent) and banks 42.9 per cent). Among the non-institutional sources, agricultural/professional money lenders (25.8 per cent) had the major share in terms of outstanding loans. Share of institutional loans increases with increase in land possessed, the report said.
In all, Assam has 34,230 agricultural households as per an estimate made by the NSSO while conducting the survey. This figure of agricultural households was 65.2 per cent of the total estimated rural households of 52,494 in the state between July 2012 and June 2013, said the report of the survey.
The NSSO surveyed 1,682 households in 214 villages of the state, while it surveyed a total of 35,200 households in 4,529 villages of the country during the exercise.
The estimated all India figure of total agricultural households was 9,02,011 against the total estimated rural households of 15, 61, 442. This is 57.8 per cent of the total rural households of the country during July 2012 and June 2013.
The average monthly income per agricultural household during the agricultural year July 2012-June 2013 was estimated as Rs 6,426. During the same period, the average monthly consumption expenditure per agricultural household was Rs 6,223.
