Government sponsored credit schemes in India: Proposals for reform

James G. Copestake
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

In the face of statistics indicating that 40 per cent of the Indian population still lives below the official poverty line, the Government of India has placed increasing reliance on credit as an instrument for the creation of new rural assets and livelihoods for the poor. A number of broadly similar schemes exist (of which the largest is the Integrated Rural Development Programme) each tailored to finance a different range of investments. They all entail organisational and financial collaboration between banks and government departments, although the nature and extent of collaboration varies considerably.

Drawing upon field-work conducted by the author in the Madurai region of Tamil Nadu, this paper compares the impact of two of the schemes and discusses the design features that explain their relative performance.

On the supply side, the chief weakness identified is a tendency towards over-supply of credit relative to real investment opportunities, arising from the institutional separation of target-fixing and borrower identification (government functions) from loan disbursement and recovery (bank functions). On the demand side, the major problem is that the initial scale of operation of most production units fostered by the schemes is too low given the existence of substantial economies of scale in capacity to bear risks.

The final section of the paper considers how these problems may be overcome. Scheme lending should be broken up into projects: with a single sponsoring agency responsible for each throughout its life. The chief role of the banks would be to appraise—and where necessary reject—project proposals submitted to them by sponsoring agencies. In place of targets, overall supply would be determined by the ability of development agencies to formulate projects acceptable to the banks.

While lending on these lines would improve the long-term development impact of credit schemes, it would also have a short-term political cost by reducing the number of borrowers who receive cheap credit. This factor and the resistance of more conservative-minded government officials are likely to be the main barriers to the proposed reforms.

At a more general level, the paper is a response to the call for a ‘more systematic and rigorous analysis of institutions and institutional environments … essential for understanding and implementing effective policy reforms of rural credit markets’.3 It illustrates how the institutional framework of credit provision may be as important as specific terms (such as inclusion of subsidy and restrictions on the end-use of loans) in determining the success or failure of particular schemes.

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印度政府资助的信贷计划:改革建议
面对表明40%的印度人口仍然生活在官方贫困线以下的统计数字,印度政府越来越依赖信贷作为为穷人创造新的农村资产和生计的工具。存在着一些大致相似的计划(其中最大的是农村综合发展计划),每一个都是为不同范围的投资提供资金。它们都需要银行和政府部门在组织和财务方面进行合作,尽管合作的性质和程度各不相同。根据作者在泰米尔纳德邦马杜赖地区进行的实地工作,本文比较了两种方案的影响,并讨论了解释其相对性能的设计特征。在供应方面,确定的主要弱点是相对于实际投资机会而言信贷供应过剩的趋势,这是由于确定目标和确定借款人(政府职能)与贷款支付和回收(银行职能)在体制上分离造成的。在需求方面,主要的问题是,由于在能力方面存在大量的规模经济,这些计划所培养的大多数生产单位的初始经营规模太低,无法承担风险。论文的最后一部分考虑如何克服这些问题。计划贷款应分成多个项目:由一个赞助机构负责每个项目的整个生命周期。银行的主要角色是评估——并在必要时拒绝——赞助机构提交给它们的项目提案。总体供应将取决于发展机构制定银行可接受的项目的能力,而不是目标。尽管此类贷款将改善信贷计划对发展的长期影响,但它也会减少获得廉价信贷的借款人数量,从而产生短期政治成本。这一因素和更保守的政府官员的抵制可能是拟议改革的主要障碍。在更普遍的层面上,这篇论文是对“对制度和制度环境进行更系统、更严格的分析……对于理解和实施有效的农村信贷市场政策改革至关重要”的呼吁的回应它说明了在决定特定计划的成败方面,信贷提供的体制框架如何可能与具体条款(例如包括补贴和对贷款最终用途的限制)同样重要。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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