NEW DELHI: Urban households in India had an average debt of Rs 1,20,336, while the average amount of debt was Rs 59,748 among rural households as of June 2018, reveals the latest All India Debt & Investment Survey conducted during January-December in the year 2019.
The survey, which was part of the 77th round of National Sample Survey (NSS), finds that average debt for self-employed people in urban areas was almost double (at Rs 1,79,765) than that of other households (Rs 99,353). In rural areas, cultivator households owed on an average Rs 74,460 compared to Rs 40,432 owed by non-cultivator households. According to the survey, incidence of Indebtedness as of June 2018 was about 35% in rural India (40.3% cultivator households, 28.2% non-cultivator households) compared to 22.4% in urban India (27.5% self-employed households, 20.6% other households).
The exposure to non-institutional credit (money lender, etc) is still high in rural areas, as about 10.2% of the households were indebted to non-institutional credit agencies only in rural India while 4.9% households in Urban India were exposed to non-institutional credit.
About 7% of the households were indebted to both institutional credit agencies and non-institutional credit agencies in Rural India against 3% households in Urban India. As for institutional credit, 17.8% households in rural India had taken loans only from such agencies while 14.5% households in Urban India had exposure to only institutional credit. Last such survey was conducted in 2013.