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Another distinction of farmer House holds in Meghalaya is that over 90 per cent of them i.e. 91 out of every 100, mainly depend on “Relatives and Friends” for loan, reveals the NSSO Survey on “indebtedness of farmer households”, in the country. Meghalaya already holds the distinction of having the lowest incidence of outstanding loan amounting to Rs.72/- only per farmer household.
However, at all-India level farmers continue to be under the clutches of professional moneylenders i.e. for every 29/100 the main source is loan sharks. The incidence of borrowing from loan sharks were the highest in Andhra Pradesh i.e. 57/100 indebted households followed by Tamil Nadu 52/100. Banks followed by Cooperative Societies were the next two important sources of borrowing for the farmers.
In Kerala and Uttranchal, the highest incidence of borrowing was from the banks i.e. 42/100 and 40/100 respectively. In case of Cooperative Societies, Maharashtra topped the list with 61/100 followed by Kerala 46/100. Another unique feature emerged from the survey is that farmer households in Jammu & Kashmir and Sikkim depend mostly on traders for loans. It was 88/100 in Jammu & Kashmir and 70/100 in Sikkim.
Among the purposes for which the loans were procured, the most important was “Current expenditure in farm business”. The Survey revealed that at the all India level, on an average 37/100 indebted farmer households had taken loan for this very purpose. Among the States, loans taken for this purpose were most common in Gujarat 56/100 followed by Maharashtra 53/100, Karnataka 52/100 and Andhra Pradesh 51/100.
The other two important purposes of loans were Capital expenditure in farm business and Consumption expenditure. In the procurement of loans for Consumption expenditure, Jammu & Kashmir topped with 85/100, Sikkim 74/100, Mizoram 54/100 and Nagaland 52/100.
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