-Livemint.com/ India Ratings Report by India Ratings & Research Non-performing loan ratio of agriculture loan portfolio could double for some Banks The asset quality of India’s agricultural credit could be significantly affected by crop damage due to untimely hail and rain in March, according to India Ratings and Research. The non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of the agriculture loan portfolio could double for some Banks, though the reduction of overall return on average assets...

-Livemint.com The RBI norms towards targeted marginal lending for the small farmer is a structural solution to aid them—unlike bailout packages, which provide only short-term relief In its latest overhaul of priority sector lending rules, the central bank has stipulated that lenders should funnel at least 8% of their credit to small and marginal farmers. While the overall agriculture loan growth has galloped over the past decade, the chart shows why...

-Deccan Chronicle Hyderabad: Nearly 91 per cent of farmers in AP are debt-ridden. Unable to repay their debts to private moneylenders, farmers sometimes commit suicide, state Agriculture department statistics. This was informed to the AP Assembly too in the recent Budget Session by minister for agriculture P. Pulla Rao. Most of these farmers are tenants who number nearly 25 lakh. Of them, only 1.4 lakh get loans from Banks. Nationalised Banks, in...

-The Indian Express As the toll of human misery and suicide mounts, official estimates of farm losses due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in March remain controversial, with hasty downward revision. Since these estimates are largely notional, without validation from field visits, such revision smacks of deliberate fiddling. On March 24, the agriculture ministry reported that crops on 18 million hectares — about 30 per cent of the rabi crops —...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Raising the spectre of a second successive year of deficient rains, the India Meteorological Department has predicted below normal rainfall for the upcoming monsoon season with a 33% probability of rains being less than 90%, commonly referred to as a drought. "The monsoon seasonal rainfall is likely to be 93% of the long-period average with a model error of plus or minus 5%," said Union earth...