Rising farm loans, defaults another worry for banks

For most banks, 5-6% loans to agriculture sector are NPAs; way lower than mid, large corporate loans

At the Randangachi village in West Bengal, farmers routinely sell a part of their crop for less than half the market price to moneylenders at the end of the season to escape the burden of over debt.

One of them, landless vegetable farmer Mairel Mandal, has a total debt of Rs 40,000. He owes money to seed sellers, the water supplier, the landlord and the fertiliser shop.

At the end of the season (December-January), most wholesale vegetable buyers from Bihar and Odisha gave the village a miss. Most were reeling from liquidity shortage because of the demonetisation of old Rs