Credit in rural India: a case study

This paper presents a case study of credit transactions in Palanpur, a north Indian village. Drawing on detailed informtion from all borrowers and lenders in the village, we examine a number of issues related to the functioning of rural credit markets. These include the segmentation of the credit market, the achievements and failure of public lending institutions, the role of interest-free lending, the lending strategies of village moneylenders, social inequalities in access to credit, and the politics of rural credit, among others. An attempt is also made to relate these findings to those of other studies of credit in rural India.