TY - JOUR AV - public UR - http://oar.icrisat.org/9150/ PB - Agricultural Economics Research Association (AERA) TI - Truncated Access to Institutional Agricultural Credit as a Major Constraint for Rural Transformation: Insights from Longitudinal Village Studies A1 - Kumar, R A1 - Vikraman, S A1 - Bantilan, C A1 - Lagesh, M A A1 - Yadav, U S N1 - This article is part of the issue " Conference Issue on Inter- and Intra - Sectoral Dynamics for Transforming Indian Agriculture" published by Agricultural Economics Research Review (AERI), India in 2015 SN - 0971-3441 VL - 28 N2 - The study has examined the trend of formal credit growth and its influence on rural transformation in terms of accelerating growth in household income levels. It has also identified the factors influencing the access to formal agricultural credit in the study regions, viz. eastern and semi-arid tropics (SAT) of India. The longitudinal household level data of about 1200 households in three states each in these two regions have been analysed for the period 2010 to 2013. The study has observed that the poor access to formal credit has compelled these households to take loan from informal sources who sometimes charge interest @ 60 to 120 per cent per annum, threatening the livelihoods of these smallholders and poor households. During the study period of three years (2010 - 2013), no change in situation was visible in these villages and the access to formal sources of agricultural credit seems to remain truncated. The main reasons for this disturbing trend is the lack of institutional framework to provide cheap and subsidized credit to these marginal and landless households, who take land on lease for cultivation. The Tobit model has been fitted to determine the accessibility to formal agricultural credit in these regions. The study has highlighted the need of building a strong and inclusive financial infrastructure to provide necessary credit support to the smallholder farmers in the eastern and SAT regions for bringing a rapid rural transformation. SP - 137 Y1 - 2015/// EP - 150 ID - icrisat9150 KW - Rural credit KW - Agricultural credit KW - Interest subvention KW - Eastern region KW - SAT region KW - Village level studies KW - Panel data KW - India KW - Longitudinal village studies JF - Agricultural Economics Research Review ER -