VILLAGE HOUSEHOLD's AVERAGE INCOME Rs. 10 LAKH

Households in rural areas hold assets worth over Rs 10 lakh on average, less than half the holdings by those in cities, says a government survey. At the same time, villages account for higher proportion of families owning some physical and financial assets at 98 per cent, higher than 94 per cent in urban areas. "Around 98 per cent of rural households and around 94 per cent of urban households in India owned some physical and financial assets as on June 30, 2012. Average value of assets (AVA) owned by a household was Rs 10.07 lakh for the rural areas and Rs 22.85 lakh for the urban areas," said the 70th round of National Sample Survey's All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS). According to the survey, about 31 per cent of the rural households and 22 per cent of the urban households reported debt (cash loan) outstanding as on June 30, 2012. The average amount of debt (AOD) for a rural household was Rs 32,522 and that for an urban household was Rs 84,625. The indebtedness as on June 30, 2012, was predominant for both rural (20.3 per cent) and urban (13.4 per cent) households. ‘Interest-free loans’ (mainly taken from friends and relatives), were also quite significant - with 6.5 per cent in the villages and 4.4 per cent in cities. Among the social groups, in rural India, the incidence of indebtedness (16.9 per cent) was lowest for ST households and highest (35.7 per cent) for OBC households. On the other hand, average amount of debt was lowest for ST households (Rs 9,610) and highest for ‘Others’ households (Rs 44,565). In urban India, the lowest incidence of indebtedness was again that of the ST households (16.4 per cent) and the highest that of OBC (26.0 per cent). But the incidence of indebtedness for ‘others’ was only 19 per cent – lower than that of SC. The relative 2 position of the four social groups, in terms of average amount of debt, was found to be the same as in the rural areas. The results of the survey show that non-institutional agencies played a major role in advancing credit to the households, particularly in rural India. The non-institutional agencies had advanced credit to 19 per cent of rural households, while the institutional agencies had advanced credit to 17 per cent households. In urban India, the institutional agencies appear to have played a major role, advancing credit to 15 per cent of households against 10 per cent by non-institutional agencies. The key indicators of the survey are based on the central sample consisting of 4,529 villages in rural areas and 3,507 urban blocks spread over all states and UTs.

Over 50% of farming households indebted

More than 50 per cent of the families engaged in farm activities were indebted in 2012-13 crop year (July-June), a survey said today. "About 52 per cent of the agricultural households in the country were estimated to be indebted. Among the major states, Andhra Pradesh had the highest share of indebted agricultural households in the country at 92.9 per cent," the farm survey by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said. Andhra Pradesh was followed by Telangana at 89.1 per cent and Tamil Nadu at 82.5 per cent. In rural India, about 60 per cent of the loans were taken from institutional sources including banks (42.9 per cent), co-operative society (14.8 per cent) and government (2.1 per cent). However, share of monthly income of these households from non-farm business fell with increase in land possession. Though net investment in productive assets per agricultural household increased with increase in land size. Amongst others, it was found that a very small segment of the agricultural households utilised crop insurance. "Lack of awareness was the most reported reason by the agricultural households for not insuring their crops during the agricultural year July 2012-June 2013," it said. About 0.1 per cent of rural households were landless and about 93 per cent possessed some type of land. The survey said about 78.5 per cent households did not possess any land outside the village they were living.

LAND HOLDING MARGINAL

As much as 75.42 per cent of total rural households are marginal land owners, who own up to one hectare, while the proportion of families having more than 10 hectares is 0.24 per cent, says a government survey. "Within the rural households, the marginal land owners (possessing more than 0.002 but less than or equal to 1 hectare of land) constituted the highest proportion (75.42per cent) of total rural households," the National Sample Survey's 70th Round on Land and Livestock Holdings in January-December, 2013, said. According to survey a large land owners (possessing land more than 10 hectares) constituted the lowest proportion (0.24 per cent) of the total households.
The landless category (possessing land less than or equal 0.002 hectare) constituted 7.41 per cent of rural households.
In terms of percentage of total area owned, the largest category was the marginal land owners owing 29.75 per cent of the total land area owned.
Among all the ownership holdings, the families with self-employed in cultivation as the major source of income, owned the highest share of land (81.4 per cent of total land) with average area owned 1.104 hectares.
Share of land owned by the families with self-employed in livestock farming and the households with self-employed in other agricultural activities were 1.5 per cent each of the total land area owned. As much as 88.6 per cent of the household operational holdings were operated for the whole agricultural year, whereas 8.5 per cent was operated only during July-December, 2012, and 2.9 per cent only during January-June, 2013. The land use pattern shows that the estimated land area used for crop production was around 94.7 per cent during the season July–December, 2012 and around 79 per cent during the season January–June, 2013.
The proportion of areas of land used for non-agricultural purposes were 2.83 per cent and 13.85 per cent in these two periods respectively. The highest percentage of area was used for growing cereals in both the periods July–December, 2012 (56.21 per cent) and January–June, 2013 (57.74 per cent). The next major use of land was for production of oil seeds (13.75 per cent and 7.34per cent) and pulses (6.30 per cent and 10.20 per cent) in the two seasons respectively.