Access to Formal Credit in the Indian Agriculture: Does Caste matter?

Karthick, V.; Madheswaran, S.

doi:10.1177/2394481118814064

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While Okeahalam (2009) does not find any impact of race on branches of five retail banks in South Africa, Hegerty (2016) finds that the cities of Milwaukee and Buffalo, characterized by a large black population, have significantly higher unbanked areas. In the Indian context, studies by Kumar (2013), Karthick and Madheswaran (2018), Kumar and Venkatachalam (2019) and Rao (2018) found evidence of caste-based discrimination in farmer's access to bank credit in rural India. Tiwari et al (2022) record this evidence at the household level in the state of Uttar Pradesh.…”

Section: Explanatory Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What influences village-level access to a bank branch? Evidence from India

Garg

Gupta

2023

IJBM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeFinancial access is key to achieving several economic goals in developing countries. This paper aims to construct a longitudinal village-level measure of financial access in India and understand the role of RBI's policies and village characteristics in influencing the access.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt a spatial approach in developing a metric of financial access. In particular, they measure the distance of each unbanked village in India to the nearest banked-centre from 1951 to 2019. The authors use this measure to conduct two exercises. First, a descriptive study is undertaken to assess how RBI's policies on bank branch expansion from 1951 to 2019 influenced the proximity to bank branches. Second, the authors conduct regression analyses to investigate how socio-economic and demographic characteristics of villages influence their proximity to bank branches.FindingsThe average distance of an unbanked village to the nearest banked-centre has declined from 43.5 km in 1951 to 4.2 km in 2019. The gain in bank access has varied geographically and over time. In 2001, bank branches were relatively distant from villages with under-privileged caste groups and proximate to areas with better infrastructure. This relationship worsened after 2005 when RBI introduced liberalized branch expansion policies. By 2019, proximity responds much more adversely to the presence of underprivileged groups. At the same time, banks have moved closer to economically better-off villages and villages with workforce in non-farm enterprises rather than agriculture.Originality/valueFirst, studies in the Indian context focus on state-level determinants of bank branching, this is the first study to develop a longitudinal measure of financial access at the village level. This helps to understand spatial heterogeneity in bank branch access within states, which other studies are unable to do. Second, the paper analyses the role of village-level socio-economic and demographic characteristics in proximity to bank branches. This analysis helps in discovering micro-foundations of growth of bank branch network. The granularity of the approach adopted here overcomes the confoundedness problems that the studies at a more aggregate level face.

show abstract

Section: Explanatory Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What influences village-level access to a bank branch? Evidence from India

Garg

Gupta

2023

IJBM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Smallholders in contract farming value chain: Challenges and opportunities, empirical evidence from West Bengal, India

Barik,

Bedamatta,

Vikraman

2024

Journal of International Food & Agribusiness Marketing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Disparity of agricultural credit in India: field data evidence from farmers across social groups

Yadav

Rao

2022

IJSE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeThis work aims to examine the access and disparity of institutional agricultural credit for small and marginal farmers across various social groups from three Indian states.Design/methodology/approachField data on socio economic variables were collected using multi-stage stratified random sampling and purposive sampling through a structured questionnaire by interviewing about 400 cross sectional small and marginal farmers belonging to various social groups such as general caste, other backward caste, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Disparity of agricultural credit across different social groups is assessed using measures such as credit access, credit adequacy ratio, credit gap and newly constructed Agriculture Credit Disparity Index (ACDI).FindingsThe credit access, credit access ratio and newly constructed ACDI suggest that, by and large, farmers belonging to socially advantaged groups have better access to institutional agricultural assistance than farmers belonging to socially disadvantaged groups.Practical implicationsThe agricultural credit policy of the government needs to incorporate measures to eliminate credit disparity primarily by correcting the poor socio-economic profile (especially lower asset ownership and higher illiteracy) of socially disadvantaged farmers compared to the farmers' counterparts.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the existing work by providing fresh evidence from the field across social groups for both kharif and rabi crops using recent survey data from small and marginal farmers which have important policy implications.

show abstract

Access to Formal Credit in the Indian Agriculture: Does Caste matter?

Cited by 4 publications

References 29 publications

What influences village-level access to a bank branch? Evidence from India

What influences village-level access to a bank branch? Evidence from India

Smallholders in contract farming value chain: Challenges and opportunities, empirical evidence from West Bengal, India

Disparity of agricultural credit in India: field data evidence from farmers across social groups

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About