Data on sectoral deployment of bank credit for the month of February 2023¹ collected from 40 select scheduled commercial banks, accounting for about 93 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all scheduled commercial banks, are set out in Statements I and II.

On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, non-food bank credit² registered a growth of 15.9 per cent in February 2023 as compared with 9.2 per cent a year ago.

Highlights of the sectoral deployment of bank credit are given below:

• Credit to agriculture and allied activities rose by 14.9 per cent (y-o-y) in February 2023 as compared with 10.3 per cent a year ago.

• Credit to industry registered a growth of 7.0 per cent (y-o-y) in February 2023 as compared with 6.7 per cent in February 2022. Size-wise, credit to large industry rose by 5.0 per cent as compared with 0.9 per cent a year ago. Credit growth of medium industries was 13.5 per cent as against 53.8 per cent. Credit to micro and small industries registered a growth of 13.2 per cent in February 2023 (24.0 per cent a year ago).

• Within industry credit growth to ‘all engineering’, ‘basic metal & metal products’, ‘beverage & tobacco’, ‘cement & cement products’, ‘chemicals & chemical products’, ‘construction’, ’glass & glassware’, ‘mining & quarrying’, ‘petroleum, coal products & nuclear fuels’, ‘vehicles, vehicle parts & transport equipment’ and ‘wood & wood products’ accelerated in February 2023 as compared with the corresponding month of the previous year. Credit growth to ‘food processing’ ‘gems & jewellery’, ‘infrastructure’, ‘leather & leather products’, ‘paper & paper products’, ‘rubber, plastic & their products’ and ‘textiles’ decelerated/contracted.

• Credit growth to services sector was robust at 20.7 per cent (y-o-y) in February 2023 as compared with 6.2 per cent a year ago, primarily due to the improved credit offtake to ‘Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs)’.

• Personal loan growth accelerated to 20.4 per cent (y-o-y) in February 2023 from 12.5 per cent a year ago, driven by housing loans.

Ajit Prasad            
Director (Communications)

Press Release: 2022-2023/1941

¹ Data pertain to the last reporting Friday of the month.

² Non-food credit data are based on Section-42 return for the last reporting Friday of the month, which covers all scheduled commercial banks (SCBs).