Articles by M L Dantwala

Rural Development Investment without Organisation M L Dantwala "ERRORS, false starts and dead ends in the development story of the last three decades"1 have brought about a fair degree of acceptance among scholars of the view that growth should be judged by the contribution it makes to reduction of poverty, inequality and exploitation. The growing emphasis on rural development can be traced to this delayed awareness reflected in the special programmes for the weaker sections of the rural community and backward areas:


6 This is what one eminent economist- central banker in a developing country has to say on high interest rate policies: "It seehis self-evident to say that since capital is scarce, interest rates should be high. But how high is high enough? And if neither wages nor taxes. nor final product prices are supposed to change, can it not be that the encroachment of the 'rate of interest on the rate of proBt may be a retrograde act insofar as entre- oreneurship is even scarcer than investment finance?" [Patel (1966)].

Regional Rural Banks A Clarification M L Dantwala I HAVE read Bhabatosh Datta's review of the Report of the Review Committee on Regional Rural Banks (September 9) with respect due to as esteemed colleague whose knoowledge and understanding of Indian banking is second to none. I have therefore no hesitation in accepting his criticism that some of "the categorical statements" following the analysis of the working of (only) 12 Regional Rural Banks should have been avoided. But frankly I do not see anything ''wishful" about these statements. The Committee was keenly aware that an evaluation based on the performance of the RRBs which were in operation for periods ranging between six and 20 months is "not adequate for judging the effi- cacy of the system one way or the other". Yet the Committee could not altogether avoid conducting a modest field investigation without inviting another type of criticism. The purpose of the survey was limited primarily to gatting a feel of their working, ascertain the views and the reactions of the personnel engaged in implementing the scheme, problems and frustrations faced by them, the impact they had made on the local population

of Kerala Joan P Mencher The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of agrarian relations in the two main rice regions of Kerala, Kuttanad (a low-lying area covering parts of Alleppey, Kottayam and Quilon Districts) and Palghat, in order to examine one, forces interfering with production and, secondly, the elms relations that serve to impede a more equitable distribution of food and other commodities. The paper describes some of the striking contradictions in each area, and offers some tentative predictions for their future development.

or income distribution not impiioved significantly, it is certainly not because of the dearth of statistical data and their analysis, nor one may say, for lack of academic concern. The magnitude of the problem and the policy implications of planning for minimum heeds, with alternative time paths, have been fairlyv well known. But what the models visualised, planners could not fulfil; and what the planners proposed, the politicians undid. It may perhaps lie said that the scholars know more about poverty than about the poor; yet no other group of scholars in India was better -qualified to write on the subject than the contributors to the Volume under review.* It is also no coincidence that most of them were associated, in one capacity or another, with the late Pitambar Pant. Pant was one of those few persons whose passion for data was mingled with a purpose and who could give intellectual content to a sentiment, lie sought and seduced talent. There could not have been, therefore, a better tribute to his memory than a Volume of articles, by his friends and colleagues, on Poverty and Income Distribution. It is in the fitness of things that the first article in the Volume is a pioneering study of the Perspective Planning Division of the Planning Commission entitled "Perspective of Development: 1961-76, Implications of Planning for a Minimum Level of Living'', prepared under Pitamber Pant's guidance in 1962. As one rereads the article on the eve of the terminal year of the time frame of this study, one becomes acutely aware of the dream we lost, maybe because it was a planner's dream. No one would accuse this perspective of being over- ' ambitious; The postulated 7 per cent annual growth during 1966-76 was based on the goal of Rs 20 per month as a national minimum (at 1900-61 prices), to be attained by 1975-76, and a reduction in the concentration ratio of per capita consumption from 0,33 to 0.25. (Even so, in the terminal year, nearly 12 per cent of the population would have remained below the poverty level.) * Poverty and Income Distribution in India (ed) T N Srtolvasan an P K Bardhan, Statistical Publishing Society, Calcutta, 1974.