- There are 147.90 million rural households in India. Over 60 per cent are farmer households and these number 89.35 million. An overwhelming 43.42 million or over 48 per cent had run up debt.
- Among states, Andhra Pradesh had the largest share of indebted households—82 per cent. Tamil Nadu came second with 74.5 per cent and India’s granary, Punjab, was third with over 65 per cent.
- In terms of sheer numbers, however, the most populated Uttar Pradesh topped with 6.9 million. With close to 5 million, Andhra Pradesh was not much far behind. Maharashtra has the third highest number—3.6 million.
- About 57 per cent of total farmer households are cultivators. Which means that tilling land is their principal source of income. Half of this number are deeply in debt.
- Households with land holdings of below one hectare made up 66 per cent of all the households. Even here, nearly 45 per cent were indebted.
- More than half of the indebted farmer households had taken loans for capital or current expenditure in the farm business. Such loans accounted for Rs 584 out of every Rs 1,000 of the outstanding loans.
- Average loan outstanding against each farmer household was the highest in Punjab, followed by Kerala, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
