Data on sectoral deployment of bank credit collected on a monthly basis from select 46 scheduled commercial banks, accounting for about 95 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all scheduled commercial banks, for the month of March 2016 are set out in Statements I and II. These data are also available in the Real-Time Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy (http://dbie.rbi.org.in).

Highlights of the sectoral deployment of bank credit are given below:

• On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, non-food bank credit increased by 9.1 per cent in March 2016 as compared with the increase of 8.6 per cent in March 2015.

• Credit to agriculture and allied activities increased by 15.3 per cent in March 2016 as compared with the increase of 15.0 per cent a year ago.

• Credit to industry increased by 2.7 per cent in March 2016 as compared with the increase of 5.6 per cent in March 2015. Credit growth continues to decelerate or decline for most sub-sectors, some of which include petroleum, coal products and nuclear fuels, construction, infrastructure and food processing.

• Credit to the services sector increased by 9.1 per cent in March 2016 as compared with the increase of 5.7 per cent in March 2015.

• Personal loans increased by 19.4 per cent in March 2016, up from the increase of 15.5 per cent in March 2015.

Ajit Prasad
Assistant Adviser

Press Release : 2015-2016/2541