Examine the India wide trends in Agricultural Credit Outstandings.

As per the information provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under the Right to Information (RBI) act, the following observations can be made:

• Nine states have reported a decline in banks’ credit outstanding to agriculture and allied activities during the financial year ended in March 2019.
• This decline in credit outstanding is observed despite a rise in the overall credit offtake to the sector across the country.
• The overall Agri credit outstanding increased from Rs 13.69 lakh crore in March 2018 to Rs 15.29 lakh crore in March 2019. This increase was largely attributed to a huge rise in credit flow of over Rs 97,278 crore to Maharashtra.
• The Agri credit outstanding of Uttar Pradesh declined to Rs 91,628 crore in the year ended March 2019 from Rs 97,707 crore in the previous year.
• Karnataka’s Agri credit portfolio reduced to Rs 78,517 crore as of March 2019 from Rs 90,195 crore in the previous year.
• Punjab’s Agri credit outstanding fell to Rs 66,766 crore from Rs 72,020 crore in the previous year.
• Other states that registered a decline in Agri credit outstandings are Goa, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Telangana, as well as the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
• Maharashtra’s farm credit portfolio jumped to Rs 426,649 crore from Rs 329,371 crore in the previous fiscal.
• Uttarakhand also showed a big jump in farm outstandings to Rs 23,703 crore from Rs 9,476 crore a year ago.

India’s largest bank State Bank of India’s (SBI) farm credit portfolio was the largest with outstandings of Rs 314,433 crore as of March 2019, followed by Punjab National Bank (Rs 81,500 crore) and Canara Bank (Rs 71,169 crore).