However, there is a catch. In India, a huge amount of rural loans is from private money-lenders, who operate outside the formal banking channels. Naturally, loan waivers do not benefit those who borrow from money-lenders as most write-offs are either limited to commercial banks or cooperative societies. Though T.S. Devaraja, head of Mysore University’s commerce department, says that the share of money-lenders in rural credit has diminished to around 5-10 per cent since 2013, Prof Abhijit Sen, a former member of the now-disbanded planning commission, disagrees. “It depends on how we define money-lenders. If anybody outside the formal banking system is defined as a money-lender than their role has not diminished. It includes friends and family, traders and certain forms of NBFCs.” Roughly 10% of the entire farm credit is believed to be from non-formal banking sources like money-lenders.