Articles by Raj Krishna

Small Farmer Development Raj Krishna The economic philosophy which led up to the launching of the Small Farmer Development Agency (SFDA) scheme in 1971 is simply that special preferential arrangements are necessary for the supply of inputs to small farmers because the markets for inputs (and particularly credit which is the precondition for access to all material inputs and equipment) are imperfect and non-neutrpl. They discriminate systematically against the small producers both in respect of the quantity of inputs (credit) supplied to them as well as the price at which (or more generally the terms on which) they are made available to them in comparison with larger farmers.

in India Raj Krishna In this paper I propose to argue:
(1) that the concept of 'intersectoral equity' which forms the basis of comparisons of sectoral tax burdens is operationally superfluous; (2) that recent studies (Gandhi, 1966; Mathew, 1968y of the relative burden of taxation on agriculture and non-agriculture in India fail to prove that Indian agriculture, as a sector, is "undertaxed"; (3) that there are special historical reasons why agricultural income was not treated like non-agricultural income in the Indian income-tax system after Independence; (4) that in view of these reasons the fiscal treatment of agriculture in Meiji Japan is irrelevant for contemporary Indian policy although it is frequently mentioned2 as an example to be emulated; and (5) that there is no convincing general case for heavier taxation of agricidture as such, but the existing horizontal inequity in the Indian income-tax system in favour of rich farmers should now be remedied by treating agricultural income just like non-agricultural income for fiscal purposes.

The Government of India's foodgrain operations in the last 16 years have failed to achieve everyone of their objectives. Growth of average consumption has not been stabilised; imports have not been minimised; marketed surplus has not been socialised; and the poorer sections of the population have not been provided their minimum requirements.