Credit offtake from public and private sector banks in the country grew by 23.4% for the one-year period ended January 28, indicating an upswing in industrial activity, says the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
For the one-year ended January 28 credit offtake stood at Rs 38.47 lakh crore as against Rs 31.18 lakh crore during the year ago period.
During the period, deposits went up to Rs 51.28 lakh crore from Rs 44.39 lakh crore as on January, 2010, according to latest data from the RBI.
In its annual monetary policy at the beginning of the fiscal, the RBI had estimated that credit offtake would grow by 20% this fiscal.
However, last month the apex bank expressed apprehension at the widening ratio between the credit and deposit rates of banks. This has the potential to affect the supply of liquidity in system due to higher lending by the banks vis-a-vis lower deposits.
At its recent third quarterly monetary policy review, RBI had noted that the deposit growth moderated during 2010.
Several banks raised their deposit rates after the Second Quarter Review of 2010-11 which contributed to a larger deposit mobilisation in December.
Consequently, deposit growth increased to 16.5% by end-December 2010, close to the indicative projection of 17% for 2010-11.
However, annual nonfood credit growth has been above the Reserve Bank's indicative projection of 20% since early October 2010, rising to 24% by end-December 2010, it said.
The wide gap between credit growth and deposit growth resulted in a sharp increase in the incremental non-food credit-deposit ratio to 102% by end-December 2010, up from 58% in the corresponding period of previous year, it added.
During the past few months, credit offtake has grown at the rate of 20% on average.
Credit offtake has been higher this fiscal on account of large borrowings by telecom firms to pay for 3G spectrum.
The government realised over Rs 1 lakh crore from the sale of spectrum for high speed mobile and broadband wireless services, much higher than the Budget estimate of Rs 35,000 crore.
Credit rating agencies like Crisil had earlier said the country is likely to see credit offtake grow at a rate of around 20-22% this fiscal.
