Articles by Sudha Narayanan

This paper examines Karnataka’s pioneering agricultural output marketing reforms with the twin goals of assessing the state and challenges of implementation and to glean lessons from Karnataka’s experience for India’s e-National Agriculture Market. Through a field study of 10 mandis across the state, we find that while Karnataka has been consistently pushing through with reforms, in the context of deeply entrenched relationships between farmers, traders and commission agents, there remain significant challenges. We argue, based on Karnataka’s experience, that agricultural market reform in India rests on three pillars— institutions that establish the rules of the game, incentives for agents to participate actively in the market, and infrastructure to support the modernised trading platform. Unless reforms address all these three issues simultaneously, they are unlikely to succeed.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that guarantees employment of every rural household for 100 days has different progressive provisions to incentivise participation of women in the programme. Official data suggest that 47% of all MGNREGA workers are women. The extent to which the programme is inclusive of women, with a particular focus on sub-populations of women such as widows and mothers of young children who typically face serious constraints in the context of labour market participation, is examined in this study using data from the National Sample Survey. The study finds that while the MGNREGA has indeed been inclusive of women, the substantial variations both across states and the exclusion of vulnerable groups of women demand attention.

This paper examines the emergence of specific commodity complexes and transactional forms in eight interior districts in Tamil Nadu focusing on gherkins, marigold, broiler, cotton and papaya. Their growing importance is a response to the structural changes in the larger economy and the contextual constraints on agriculture in the region. It posits that this phenomenon represents an inflection in the trajectory of agricultural growth in the region because of three distinct features. First, the new commodity complexes have strong links to agribusinesses and global markets. Second, downstream players exert an unprecedented influence and control over production practices. Third, the need for control over quality demands particular transactional forms such as contract farming. The paper argues that despite some economic gain, challenges of a different kind emerge and the normative implications of these changes are as yet unclear.

A social audit in Tamil Nadu finds that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has brought about major changes in the lives of women. However, the act overlooks the fact that childcare is a problem for many of the working women, especially for young mothers.

Broadly half of the huge supposedly agricultural subsidy on fertilisers and power, amounting to more than Rs 31,000 crore and comprising 2 per cent of GDP, is either going to industry in the case of fertilisers or is simply being stolen by non-agricultural consumers in the case of power. This paper estimates plant-specific domestic resource cost of all urea plants in the country, and aggregate measure of support for selected commodities through power subsidies. It also gives some policy options both for the centre to tackle fertiliser subsidy and to the states to minimise power subsidy