Priority Sector Lending by Public and Private Sector Banks in India

Priority Lending is critical to the inclusive growth in India. The credit distribution to the priority sectors is vital in ensuring that the economic growth is even and percolates down to all levels in the economy. RBI made it mandatory to the Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCB) in India for providing credit delivery to critical sectors identified as part of priority sector. RBI mandated all the banks should achieve the targets and sub targets of priority sector lending as minimum percent of Adjusted Net Bank Credit (ANBC) or Off – Balance sheet Exposure (OBE) whichever is higher. This paper aims at understanding the credit delivery to Priority Sector by Public Sector Banks (PSBs), Private Sector Banks (PrSBs), analyze the ability of the banks to meet the targets and sub targets as Agriculture Advances, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Advances and Weaker Sections Advances and whether these banks are meeting the recommendations of the RBI in providing credit to different sub segments of priority sector especially, Agriculture, MSMEs and Weaker sections. Ratios were calculated to check the proportion of these priority advances in the total advances, the percentage of priority in the ANBC. The statistical tools are used to check the significant variation of priority lending by these banks. Public Sector banks are proved that they are dominant partners in this strategy for sustainability of financial inclusion through lending to all the target and sub targets as per the RBI norms. Major portion of PrSBs lending is towards MSMEs while PSB were targeting more on agriculture and weaker sections.