The Priority Sector Lending (PSL) has been a long and winding journey and is integrally connected to the political economy of Indian banking over last 60 years. PSL started as an informal idea to push lending to the neglected sectors, but quickly transformed into a formal policy which has gone through multiple changes and tribulations. PSL is often criticized for poor performance of the banking sector, especially public sector banks. The analysis shows no significant difference in the growth rates of Priority Sector Advances between public and private sector banks in India. A strong positive association is found between total advances and priority sector lending for both bank groups, demonstrating that priority sector credit expands alongside overall lending. While public sector banks maintain higher proportional exposure to priority sectors, private sector banks also show comparable growth in priority sector advances, reflecting the impact of regulatory mandates.