Viability and Equity Objectives of Institutional Credit for Agriculture

The paper first discusses whether or not there exist on a priori grounds conflict between viability and equity objectives of institutional credit for agriculture. It then goes on to describe the past experience in this regard in India. This is done on the basis of readily available published data and some micro studies covering the aspects of distribution of credit and its over dues among different sized farms. In the last section some suggestions are offered to minimize the incompatibility of the two objectives.