The Economy- Bonus Package

year, compared to Rs 352 crores in the same period of last year. Exclusive of credit for food procurement, the expansion was Rs 638 crores against Us 482 crores. The expansion in bank credit to the commercial sector this year is truly startling in the light of (a) the quiescent trend in the general level of prices and the fall in the prices of agriculture- based industrial raw materials in recent months; (b) the trends in industrial output; and (c) the Reserve Rank's claim, and the loud complaints of industrialists and businessmen, that a restrictive credit policy has been in force for the last two years. Actually it would appear that industrialists and businessmen have taken liberal recourse to bank credit to hold larger inventories and thereby fight off pressures to lower prices.