This paper uses a large panel data set covering 70 MFIs in 25 Sub‐Saharan African countries to analyze the efficiency of MFIs. This is important, given that MFIs have to operate efficiently to fulfil its dual mission of serving the poor and being sustainable. The results reveal that MFIs are inefficient in meeting the goals of either providing microfinance related services to their clients or intermediating funds between borrowers and depositors. The MFIs lack ability to reach efficient sizes of their performing loan portfolio at the same time they reach an efficient number of clients served.

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Among all sectors, the agriculture sector will be the pillar stone for sustainable economic growth. Agriculture credit shows the pivotal role for efficient agricultural transactions. The study investigates the role of agriculture credit in India’s agricultural credit through various economic analyses. The data was collected from various government websites such as RBI, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation of India, Economic Survey of India. The results observed that institutional credit has a positive correlation with fertilizers consumed whereas consumption had a negative correlation with agricultural produces. The results further stated the co-integration and the Johansen-Juselius maximum likelihood tests the long-run positive association between India’s agricultural GDP and agricultural credit and increased Agricultural GDP drives agricultural credit. Finally, the policy implication on two perspectives as to encourage institutional credit arrangement to reach farmers with easy operational facilities across the nation and non-institutional credit need to marginalize the informal sources.

Institutional banking system in India is strengthened through nationalization of banks and many innovative initiatives such as Self Help Group (SHG) - Bank Linkage Programme, Kisan Credit Card (KCC) Scheme and Financial Inclusion. However, many studies conducted in Tamil Nadu, have pointed out several issues such as inadequacy of crop loan amount owing to lower scale of finance and minimum focus on long term agricultural advances that are hampering the banking services directed towards agricultural development. In order to address these issues, an attempt was made in the present study to assess the causes for and consequences of credit gap in the disbursement of short term / crop loan to the sample farm households; Results of the study indicated that the credit gap I (Credit requirement - Scale of finance) and Credit Gap-II (Credit Requirement - Credit Sanctioned) per ha of paddy were lesser in ST borrower farms, which indicted that though the scale of finance for paddy has been fixed at higher level, i.e., well above the credit requirement, the actual credit disbursement was far lesser than the credit requirement. The working capital, in general, enhances the productivity of the crop and the external financial assistance could help farmers in purchasing the necessary farm inputs in adequate quantities and thereby the farm productivity could be improved. But the scale finance itself was far lesser than the working capital required for cultivating paddy in all categories of farms and this resulted in the wider credit gaps in the different farm categories.

The present study analyzes the adoption of improved technologies under the NFSM pulses program by the beneficiaries and to assessing the farmers' perception regarding the NFSM program in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu. Thoothukudi district was selected based on the largest area covered under NFSM pulses. Five blocks in Thoothukudi district namely Kovilpatti, Gayathar, Ottaipidaram Villathikulam, and Pudhur were purposively selected. Random sampling was used to collect primary data from 25 beneficiaries in each block and to make total sample is 120. Descriptive statistics and adoption index methods were used to analyze the beneficiaries’ perception regarding NFSM programme. Results revealed that the agricultural department was the major source of knowledge on the NFSM program followed by Friends/Neighbors. It shows that this department has actively participated in spreading the benefits of the NFSM programme to the farmers. About 53.33 percent of NFSM beneficiaries fall under medium adoption level. Concerning constraints on the adoption of the NFSM programme, the beneficiaries agreed that there is a lack of technical knowledge (55%), inability to understand all the information given in the NFSM programme (56.67%), lack of training (65%), longer time taken sanction of contingent amount (92.50%) and availability of subsidy for one hectare (100%). The beneficiaries disagreed with the availability of fertilizers on time (57.50%) and received seed after sowing (75%).