The approach paper to the Eleventh Plan indicated that the absolute number of poor is estimated to be approximately 300 million in 2004-05. Concerns about financial exclusion, especially in rural areas have surfaced in India in recent years following the results of the NSSO's All-India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS), 2002.
According to the Survey results, though the share of non-institutional sources of credit for the cultivator households had declined from 92.7 per cent in 1951 to 30.6 per cent in 1991, it had increased to 38.9 per cent in 2002 mainly due to increase in moneylenders’ share. Simultaneously, the share of institutional sources such as commercial banks, cooperative societies, etc.