NPA Norms for Agriculture Advances :
A loan granted for short duration crops will be treated as NPA, if the instalment of principal or interest thereon remains overdue for two crop
seasons and, a loan granted for long duration crops will be treated as NPA, if the instalment of principal or interest thereon remains overdue for one
crop season. Depending upon the duration of crops raised by an agriculturist, the above NPA norms would also be made applicable to agricultural term loans availed of by him.
These NPA norms should be made applicable only to Farm Credit extended to agricultural activities as listed at paragraph III (1) of the Circular on
Priority Sector Lending – Targets and Classification FIDD.CO.Plan.BC.54/ 04.09.01/2014-15 dated April 23, 2015. An extract of the list of these items is
furnished in the Annex – 2 of the Master Circular – Prudential Norms on Income Recognition, Asset Classification and Provisioning pertaining to Advances.
In respect of agricultural loans, other than those specified in the Annex – 2 and term loans given to non-agriculturists, identification of NPAs would be
done on the same basis as non-agricultural advances, which, at present, is the 90 days delinquency norm.
It is important to note that the duration of crops / crop season and the overdue period for NPA’s would be determined by the State Level Bankers’
Committee (‘SLBC’) of each state as per the extant guidelines of RBI. Further, based on the harvesting period as noted by the SLBC would be taken into consideration while identification of accounts as NPA’s.