Indian Agrarian economy is in shambles, what are its fault lines.
The agriculture is the important sector which will feed the people of the country and also contribute to the GDP of the economy .The agriculture is the primary sector of the economy and were majority of the people are dependent on that for their livelihood.
The pre-British era in India had brought radical changes in the field of agriculture and transformed country as base for exporting raw materials to the industrialized British. The britishers brought slew of systems for example Ryotwari system, Mahalwari system, Zamindari system in different parts of India to develop agriculture, however these structures are different from one to one. The Britishers exploited the agriculture of India by levelling exorbitant taxes on farmers and these taxes are utilized for paying wages of the company officials and waging war in and outside India.
After the post-independent India the predominant occupation of the people is agriculture. The Nehru's first five year plan was totally gave priority to develop agriculture and its allied industries, though it was major success for India. In this five year plan period the government took step forward by constructing the big irrigation projects to transform waste land into cultivation.
The post-independent India after Nehru government didn't witnessed radical land reforms. In some states like Kerala, Tripura, West Bengal etc where communist governments were successful in distributing waste to the deprived sections of the society. The situation was altered after the 1991 year when our country was facing huge financial crunch in its Forex reserves the then government under stewardship of P.V.Narasimha Rao started curtailing subsidies for agriculture and gave importance for secondary sector and tertiary sector. This lead people to shift their occupation to other sectors. Due to other measures also the farmers are not interested to cultivate the land and are switching to other fields for employment. The consecutive governments after Nehru failed to take measures to bring waste land under cultivation. Some of these are not providing irrigation facilities such dams, watershed programmes etc to bring waste land into cultivation.
Secondly the government failed to provide subsidies to farmers intime, such as providing power at cheap rates, fertilisers, irrigation facilities etc. Thirdly large cultivated land was under ownership of big families and this inturn named after their family members to avoid land ceiling act brought by Indira Gandhi in late 1970's. The other major reason which attributed to the downfall of agriculture in India is poor monsoons throughout the year.
The farmers overwhelmingly purchasing fertilizers and seeds for two or three crops in a year. These high yield fertilizers are becoming costly and also having grave impact on the health of people and on nature. Due to these high cost fertilizers the land is deprived from fertility. The successive governments failed to allocate sufficient funds for agriculture and its allied sectors.
The farmers are not getting good rate for their crop in the market and they thoroughly deceived by the middle men in the market. The farmers are not aware of the prices at market level and taking this situation as advantage the middle men are affording their crop at below market prices. After the 1991 where our government planned to integrate with world economy had opened doors for diverse field in the economy and this lead the common people to swift their occupation to other fields.
The agrarian economy in India having some discrepancies and this can be overcome by the government through its effective policies. This intern will develop its allied sectors that are dependent on agriculture.
B.Dwarakanadha Reddy
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