[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...
[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...
[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...
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D.M.Diwakar,<br />
Professor of Economics<br />
Giri Institute of Development Studies<br />
(GIDS), Lucknow<br />
Inclusive Growth In India: A Case Of<br />
Structural And Agrarian Challenges<br />
"To forget how to dig the<br />
earth and tend the soil is to<br />
forget ourselves."<br />
-Mahatma Gandhi<br />
Measures of economic reforms<br />
in India were expected to<br />
deliver goods and services to<br />
attain higher growth rate of the economy<br />
and provide better employability to accommodate<br />
underemployed, unemployed<br />
and marginalized sections of the<br />
society into mainstream of development.<br />
But realisations over the years have not<br />
been in conformity with the expectations.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is common agreement<br />
among the experts across the board that<br />
economy has attained higher growth<br />
rates but reforms measures are yet to<br />
prove effective towards distributive justice<br />
with higher growth. Latest Human<br />
Development Report indicates further<br />
sliding down to the rank of 128. Indian<br />
agriculture irrespective of the <strong>size</strong> of<br />
holdings, which is mainstay for majority<br />
of the masses, has been experiencing<br />
worst forms of crises culminated and<br />
manifested in starvation and tragic suicides<br />
of its producers, who have been<br />
feeding the nation. Besides unregistered<br />
starvation in backward regions in absence<br />
of employment at least at subsistence<br />
level, even diversified and prosperous<br />
agriculture of Punjab, petty cotton<br />
growers of Maharashtra, Andhra and<br />
Karnataka are also not spared from this<br />
trap. Expert Group on agrarian crisis<br />
underlines suicides as a disturbing symptom<br />
of deep-rooted crises that Indian<br />
agriculture has been confronting. Broadly<br />
two dimensions of agrarian crises –<br />
low growth with declining productivity<br />
and high dependence of population on<br />
lower farm income have been the root<br />
causes. Reflecting a little further stagnation,<br />
increasing risk in production and<br />
marketing, collapse of the extension<br />
system, growing institutional vacuum,<br />
and the lack of alternative livelihood<br />
opportunities, etc., are inter alia main<br />
factors behind agrarian crisis (Radhakrishna,<br />
<strong>2007</strong>).<br />
Challenges of the syndrome of fatigue<br />
at the front of technology, institution,<br />
policy and governance (Narayanamoorthy,<br />
<strong>2007</strong>; Behera and Mishra, <strong>2007</strong>)<br />
have been debated at length. Mounting<br />
52 THE <strong>IIPM</strong> THINK TANK