Bank credit growth to agri sector in Feb’24 at 20.1% yoy, industry at 8.6%

The sectoral deployment of bank credit for the month of February shows non-food bank credit registered a year-on-year (y-o-y) growth of 16.5 per cent in February 2024 as compared with 15.9 per cent a year ago, as per RBI data for February. Data on sectoral deployment of bank credit for the month of February has been collected from 41 select scheduled commercial banks, accounting for about 95 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all scheduled commercial banks.

Credit growth to agriculture and allied activities remained robust at 20.1 per cent (y-o-y) in February 2024 from 15 per cent a year ago. Credit to industry grew by 8.6 per cent (y-o-y) in February 2024 as compared with 6.8 per cent in February 2023. Among major industries, growth in credit (y-o-y) to ‘food processing’, ‘infrastructure’ and ‘textiles’ accelerated in February 2024 as compared with the corresponding month of the previous year, while that to ‘basic metal & metal products’ and ‘chemicals & chemical products’ decelerated.

Credit to services sector grew by 21.2 per cent (y-o-y) in February 2024 (20.5 per cent a year ago). Among major contributors, growth in credit (y-o-y) to ‘trade’ and ‘commercial real estate’ improved while that to ‘non-banking financial companies (NBFCs)’ decelerated in February 2024