Village households' average assets at Rs 10 lakh

Households in rural areas hold assets worth over Rs 10 lakh on average, less than half the holdings by those in cities, says a government survey.
At the same time, villages account for higher proportion of families owning some physical and financial assets at 98 per cent, higher than 94 per cent in urban areas.
"Around 98 per cent of rural households and around 94 per cent of urban households in India owned some physical and financial assets as on June 30, 2012. Average value of assets (AVA) owned by a household was Rs 10.07 lakh for the rural areas and Rs 22.85 lakh for the urban areas," said the 70th round of National Sample Survey's All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS).

According to the survey, about 31 per cent of the rural households and 22 per cent of the urban households reported debt (cash loan) outstanding as on June 30, 2012. The average amount of debt (AOD) for a rural household was Rs 32,522 and that for an urban household was Rs 84,625.
The indebtedness as on June 30, 2012, was predominant for both rural (20.3 per cent) and urban (13.4 per cent) households. 'Interest-free loans' (mainly taken from friends and relatives), were also quite significant - with 6.5 per cent in the villages and 4.4 per cent in cities.
Among the social groups, in rural India, the incidence of indebtedness (16.9 per cent) was lowest for ST households and highest (35.7 per cent) for OBC households. On the other hand, average amount of debt was lowest for ST households (Rs 9,610) and highest for 'Others' households (Rs 44,565).

In urban India, the lowest incidence of indebtedness was again that of the ST households (16.4 per cent) and the highest that of OBC (26.0 per cent). But the incidence of indebtedness for 'others' was only 19 per cent - lower than that of SC. The relative 2 position of the four social groups, in terms of average amount of debt, was found to be the same as in the rural areas.

The results of the survey show that non-institutional agencies played a major role in advancing credit to the households, particularly in rural India.
The non-institutional agencies had advanced credit to 19 per cent of rural households, while the institutional agencies had advanced credit to 17 per cent households.

In urban India, the institutional agencies appear to have played a major role, advancing credit to 15 per cent of households against 10 per cent by non-institutional agencies.
The key indicators of the survey are based on the central sample consisting of 4,529 villages in rural areas and 3,507 urban blocks spread over all states and UTs.