[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...

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