Data on sectoral deployment of bank credit collected from select 41 scheduled commercial banks, accounting for about 90 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all scheduled commercial banks, for the month of March 2018 are set out in Statements I and II.

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

• On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, non-food bank credit increased by 8.4 per cent in March 2018, the same rate as in March 2017.

• Credit to agriculture and allied activities increased by 3.8 per cent in March 2018 as compared with an increase of 12.4 per cent in March 2017.

• Credit to industry increased by 0.7 per cent in March 2018 as compared with a contraction of 1.9 per cent in March 2017. Credit to major sub-sectors such as ‘textiles’, ‘vehicles, vehicle parts & transport equipment’, ‘all engineering’, ‘food processing’ and ‘rubber, plastic & their products’ accelerated. However, credit to ‘infrastructure’, ‘basic metal & metal products’, ‘cement & cement products’, ‘chemical & chemical products’ and ‘petroleum, coal products & nuclear fuels’ contracted/declined.

• Credit to the services sector increased by 13.8 per cent in March 2018, as compared with an increase of 16.9 per cent in March 2017.

• Personal loans increased by 17.8 per cent in March 2018 as compared with an increase of 16.4 per cent in March 2017.

Ajit Prasad
Assistant Adviser

Press Release : 2017-2018/2858