50 SOCIAL SCIENTIST relatives, etc. Even if their income and expenditure are almost the same, they have to take loans for contingencies which are related both to their productive work as well as to social, household and litigation expenses. In times of crop failures, natural calamities and accidents, resulting in death or full or partial incapacitation of family bread earners, these needs get multiplied. Since this gap is actually widening with growing unemployment, landlessness and shrinking market for rural handicrafts, they have no option except accepting some form of bondage or parting with greater portions of their produce to their creditors at less than market rates. It is this form of indebtedness with which we are mainly concerned and it is their cause and demands which the Kisan Sabha has been championing since the beginning of the organised Kisan movement. Based on this categorisation of the indebted in the rural areas, what can we say about the extent and nature of rural indebtedness based on official data? Table 1; (a) Disbursement of Agricultural Credit {Seventh Piun) (Rupees Crores) Agency 1\ 979-80 1 984-85 1985-f. ?6 : 1986-i ?7 1987-88 (target) I. Cooperatives (a) Short-term (b) Medium/ long-term 1358 585 2334 2409 602 797 2670 830 3289 ^056 Total 1943 2936 3206 3500 4345 II. Bank$ Scheduled & Regional Rural Banks 875 2560 3680 3615 5300 Total (I+II) 2818 5496 6886 7115 9645 Source: Economic Survey , 1987-88(b) Targets and Achievements in Disbursement of Cooperative Credit (Rupees Crores) 1984-85 1985-86 1986-87 1987-88 1989-90 Target Actual 3250 3700 3200 3950 3520 4270 3700 7070 Source: Seventh Five Year Plan—Mid-term Appraisal