Content area
Full Text
Economic Liberalisation and Indian Agriculture: A District-level Study, G.S. Bhalla and Gurmail Singh, Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, Pp.xxx + 360. Rs. 795.00.
The advent of high-yielding varieties (HYV) seed-fertiliser-water technology during the mid-sixties has totally changed the landscape of Indian agriculture. It has not only increased the production and productivity of various crops but also increased the cropping intensity and helped to change the cropping pattern from low value to high value crops. While benefiting the farmers directly, the new agricultural technology has also helped to reduce the rural poverty and increase the wage rates for agricultural labourers on a sustainable basis. However, it is often argued that the benefits of this new technology have not spread uniformly across various regions and states in the country. Is this true? A large number of studies have analysed the impact of new agricultural technology on various parameters over the years. But not many studies have analysed the regional dimension of it using more disaggregated district level data, especially after the introduction of economic reforms in India. This book under review has made a mammoth attempt to fill this gap utilising district level data covering all the major states of India.
Although this book is completely new in terms of analysis and presentation, it is in a way an extended version of three earlier studies conducted by G.S. Bhalla with well known scholars like Y.K. Alagh and D.S.Tyagi covering the period from 196265 to 1990-93. This version of the book extends the period of analysis till 2005-08, wherein the period from 1990-93 to 2005-08 has been considered as the period of economic reforms. With four broad objectives, the study essentially aims to analyse the pattern and growth of agricultural output, growth in productivity of agricultural workers, association between the growth of agricultural output with the use of modem inputs and the degree of regional disparities in the levels and growth of agricultural output at the state, regional and district level. The book has five chapters besides a very large part of appendices which have district-wise data on different parameters for five set of periods, namely, 1962-65, 1970-73, 1980-83, 1990-93 and 2005-08.
As the present book is an extended version of the earlier works, the first...