This book is the outcome of a study undertaken to examine the performance of formal rural credit in India. The author had generated the information on history of public intervention in rural credit, changes made in rural credit planning and efforts made to make access to formal credit easier and effective for enhanced use of credit by all sections of rural population. He has considered different facets of access and studied the performance on different fronts. Similarly different performance variables have been examined with respect to use of credit. The analysis is extended to district level as a case study of a selected district. The exercise leads to identification of deficiencies in the existing system and provides suggestions to make it more responsive and useful to users and efficient for the lending agencies. The book is another addition to his earlier publications on agricultural finance and would be useful to students of agricultural finance and policy makers and researchers interested in the rural credit.