The observed pattern of growth in the crop sector of Indian agriculture has had adverse consequences for rural ecology directly as well as indirectly through its impact on livestock development and the poverty situation. This paper attempts to suggest an analytical framework for understanding the causes of ecological degradation in the context of the changing crop and livestock economy as well as the impact of these two on rural poverty.
This paper attempts to evaluate the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) and examines whether the programme can be justified in the tight of the two major concerns of the recent debate on the subject, viz, the efficiency of IRDP investments for the poorest of the poor and the magnitude of increase in their income from these assets, regardless of whether or not they are able to cross the poverty line.
C H Hanumantha Rao The present agricultural strategy has enabled us to accumulate stocks of foodgrains sufficient to meet the internal demand without recourse to imports, but this 'self-sufficiency' has been achieved at the cost of other equally important objectives of agricultural development, viz, imparting stability to output growth, eradication of rural poverty and reduction in regional disparities.
Poverty Alleviation Programmes and the Poor C H Hanumantha Rao Abolition of Poverty in India, with Special Reference to Target Group Approach in Gujarat by Indira Hirway; Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi,
Poverty, Population and Food C H Hanumantha Rao R P Goel K Subbarao India: Occasional Papers, by Montek S Ahluwalia, John Wall, Shlomo Reutlinger, Robert Cassen and Martin Wolf; World Bank Staff Working Paper No 279, Washington, DC, 1978; pp 252.
For a large country like India with enormous regional disparities in development and differences in the institutional framework deriving, in quite a few cases, from cultural diversities, any single strategy for the whole country may not prove to be appropriate.
Some Lessons from Past Experience C H Hanumantha Rao There is a strong complementary relationship between the growth of agricultural output and employment generation in Indian agriculture because of the existence of large underutilised resources such as land and labour.
Agricultural research in India has been directed so far to varietal improvements which are essentially capital-using and raise yield per cropped acre.
The concept of 'trade-off' between growth and improved distribution is used not only to rationalise and perpetuate the prevailing unequal distribution of agricultural land but also to justify the intensive use (per acre) of scarce inputs like fertilisers and water on large farms and in the developed regions when the social product would be greater by spreading such inputs relatively thinly over a larger number of farms in a wider area. In view of their greater capacity to invest and bear risk, large farmers and the developed regions intensify the use of such inputs producing less than socially optimum output.
Lopsidedness of Fifth Plan Approach FOR the first time in the history of Indian planning, one finds in the Approach to the Fifth Plan the concrete objective of providing minimum consumption for the bottom 30 per cent of the population. The monthly per capita consumption of the lowest 30 per cent of the population, at 1971-72 prices, was estimated for 1973-74 to be Rs 22.90 in the rural areas and Rs 25.17 in the urban areas. By 1978-79, the monthly per capita consumption of this lowest 30 per cent of the population is to rise to Rs 36,64 in the rural areas and to Rs 39.60 in the urban areas. Thus the increase, over the Fifth Plan period from the initial 1973-74 level, works out to 60 per cent for the rural poor and 50 per cent for the urban poor.
Raj Committee's Report C H Hanumantha Rao The myth of extracting significant revenue from the agricultural sector through direct (progressive) taxation has persisted throughout the planning period in India. The Raj Committee on Taxation of Agricultural Wealth and Income apparently sees the reality but instead of exploding this myth and coming out boldly with proposals for an equitous tax structure, it has decided to perpetuate some of the regres- sive elements in the existing tax structure
