Women's SHG loans: bad loans at 1.74% in one Lok Sabha answer, 1.81% a week later in a table dated the day of the first; three state tables miss their printed totals

What was asked

Three Lok Sabha questions, answered between 9 February 2026 and 24 March 2026, asked about bad loans to women’s self-help groups (SHGs). The Ministry of Finance, answering on 9 February 2026, was asked for non-performing assets (NPAs) in women’s SHGs state by state, and the five states with the highest. The Ministry of Rural Development, answering on 17 March 2026, was asked for loans disbursed and outstanding, state by state, and the NPAs or NPA percentage on them. Answering on 24 March 2026, the same ministry was asked for the three big states with the lowest NPA percentage and the three with the highest NPAs.

The two Rural Development answers cover loans to women’s SHGs under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM). The Finance answer gives figures that NABARD supplied, as on 30 September 2025.

Two rates, one week apart

On 17 March 2026 the Ministry of Rural Development told the Lok Sabha that “the total NPA percentage across India is 1.74%” and Maharashtra’s is 2.19%. It gave no date for either figure. Its loans-outstanding table in the same answer runs “till January 2026”.

A week later, on 24 March 2026, the same ministry gave a “Geographic Wise Loan Delinquency Report as on 17.03.2026”, the day of the first answer. It shows 1.81% for India: Rs 5,977.37 crore of NPAs on Rs 3,29,377.20 crore outstanding. For Maharashtra it shows 2.86%: Rs 429.71 crore on Rs 15,000.94 crore.

The loans outstanding barely differ between the two answers: Rs 3,28,131.26 crore printed for India till January and Rs 3,29,377.20 crore on 17 March; for Maharashtra, Rs 14,974.63 crore and Rs 15,000.94 crore. The answers do not say why the rates differ, or which one is current.

“Highest NPA amount”, given as percentages

Part (b) of the second answer names Tamil Nadu (3.65%), Karnataka (2.72%) and Telangana (2.07%) as “the top three States with the highest NPA amount”. The figures are percentages, not amounts. By amount, the order in the table is Tamil Nadu (Rs 1,116.05 crore), Telangana (Rs 835.63 crore) and Karnataka (Rs 820.71 crore). By percentage, they are not the highest either: Meghalaya has 6.31%, and 18 of the 34 rows have a higher rate than Telangana.

The list does match one reading. Ranked by loans outstanding, the six largest states are Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Bihar. Ordered by rate, those six split into the three part (b) names (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana) and the three part (a) names as the lowest (Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar). Part (a) speaks of “big States (amount-wise outstanding)”, but neither part says where “big” ends. The seventh largest, Odisha, at 1.48%, would come second-lowest had it been counted; Jharkhand (0.87%), Assam (0.85%) and Sikkim (0.43%) have lower rates than West Bengal but smaller loan books.

Adds up, and where it does not

The two Rural Development answers carry three state tables with printed totals. None of them adds up to its total.

• Loans disbursed to women’s SHGs under DAY-NRLM till January 2026 (answer of 17 March 2026, Annexure I): the 34 rows add up to Rs 12,28,835.34 crore; the printed total is Rs 12,30,774.11 crore, Rs 1,938.77 crore more.
• Loans outstanding till January 2026 (Annexure II): the rows add up to Rs 3,28,141.29 crore; the printed total is Rs 3,28,131.26 crore, Rs 10.03 crore less.
• Loans outstanding as on 17 March 2026 (answer of 24 March 2026): the rows add up to Rs 3,29,268.96 crore; the printed total is Rs 3,29,377.20 crore, Rs 108.24 crore more. The NPA column adds up to Rs 5,977.08 crore against Rs 5,977.37 crore printed.

The answers do not say why. The rate of 1.81% is the printed NPA total over the printed outstanding total.

What the answers do not give

The Finance answer gives NABARD’s gross NPAs on loans to women’s SHGs as on 30 September 2025, for 36 states and UTs, but no total, no loans outstanding and so no rate. Its rows add up to Rs 5,557.57 crore. The Rural Development tables have no row for Chandigarh and Delhi, which the NABARD table has.

None of the three answers says whether the NABARD figures and the DAY-NRLM figures cover the same loans. Six months apart, they differ state by state in both directions: of the 34 states and UTs in both, NABARD’s September figure is the higher in 15. West Bengal had Rs 531.06 crore in NABARD’s table and Rs 346.32 crore in the March table; Bihar had Rs 274.40 crore and then more than twice that, Rs 559.51 crore. The answers do not say why.

The DAY-NRLM table gives amounts, not the number of groups or loans in default, and no year-on-year comparison.

Got it right

The answer of 24 March 2026 gives, for every state and UT, the loans outstanding, the NPA amount and the rate, so the rate can be checked: in all 34 rows the printed percentage agrees with the two amounts beside it, within their rounding. The Finance answer’s list of the five states with the highest gross NPAs matches the five largest rows of its own annexure.

Andhra Pradesh has the largest loan book, Rs 82,693.46 crore, more than a quarter (25.1%) of all loans outstanding, and the lowest rate of the six largest states, 0.61%. Of the states and UTs with any NPA, Sikkim has the lowest rate, 0.43%; Ladakh and Lakshadweep show none.

Oquilia’s audit of gold loan NPAs looked at another NPA figure given to the Lok Sabha in 2026.

Every state and UT

How we did this

• Sources: the Ministry of Rural Development’s answers to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 4068 (17 March 2026, part (c) and Annexures I and II) and Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 5168 (24 March 2026, parts (a) and (b) and the Annexure), and the Ministry of Finance’s answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 1477 (9 February 2026, part (b) and the Annexure).
• All rows were read from each answer’s Word file by a script and checked against its PDF. Every column was summed against its printed total, and every printed percentage checked against its row’s amounts. State names are written one way across the three answers; the Finance answer’s “The Dadra and Nagar Haveli” is taken as the merged UT.
• “The six largest states” are the six with the most loans outstanding in the table as on 17 March 2026. The NABARD and DAY-NRLM figures are compared only state by state and only as printed; we do not treat either as a correction of the other.
• We searched the Lok Sabha’s index of answers up to 12 August 2026 for other answers on loans to SHGs. The one later answer, of 21 July 2026, on the interest SHGs pay, gives no NPA figures.
• Download the data: women-shg-loans-npa-by-state-2025-2026.csv. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.

Questions

Corrections

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