Based on the data from the All-India Debt and Investment Surveys, a re-emergence of non-institutional credit agencies in the incidence of household indebtedness is found since the 1990s, especially in the rural areas, reflecting the inadequate social commitments of the institutional agencies due to their contemporary organisational deficiencies. The data, however, do not seem to capture the extent of urban distress in totality. Yet, given the general dearth of evidence on the status of household indebtedness over time, institutions like the Reserve Bank of India and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development should revisit this information to resurrect their roles in strengthening credit delivery to the general population.
