Page 131 - DECO502_INDIAN_ECONOMIC_POLICY_ENGLISH

Unit 11: Sectoral Performance I: Agriculture: Growth Productivity Trends and Crop Patterns

increase over the Ninth Plan outlay. As regards agriculture, the Tenth Plan set a target growth rate of Notes
4 per cent per annum during the Plan period, and raised Plan allocations on agriculture and allied
sectors, rural development, special area programmes and irrigation and flood control.
The public sector outlay on agriculture and allied activities irrigation and flood control, rural
development and special area programme which was of the order of ` 1,76,217 crores in the Ninth
Plan, incerased to ` 3,05,055 crores in the Tenth Plan which was 20 percent of the total
Table 6 : Tenth Plan Allocation on Agriculture

Ninth Plan Tenth Plan Eleventh Plan
Amount % Amount % Amount %
(`` `` ` crores) (`` `` ` crores) (`` `` ` crores)

1. Agriculture and allied 1,76,217m 20.5 3,05,055 20.0 6,74,105 18.0
activities, rural
development, special
area Irrigation and
flood control
2. Total Plan outlay 8,59,200 100.0 15,25,639 100.0 36,44,718 100.0

Source : Tenth Five Year Plan, 2002-07 ; Vol. II. and Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) Vol. I.
Note : Tenth and Eleventh Plan figures are at 2006-07 prices.
Plan outlay; this was almost the same as that in the Ninth Plan. In fact, as emphasised earlier, public
sector outlay on agriculture irrigation and others has ranged between around 20 and 24 per cent of the
total outlay in all the Plans. It may be noted that if we take agriculture and allied activities alone, public
sector outlay has been handly 4.9 percent of total outlay in ninth plan, 3.9 percent in tenth plan proposed
expenditure an agriculture and allied activities in merely 3.7 percent of total plan outlay in 11 plan.
th
Targets of Crop Production in the Tenth Plan
The Tenth Plan was the first Plan which did not fix targets of crop production.
For every Plan, the Planning Commission used to fix
(a) the rate of growth in the agricultural sector as a whole,
(b) the planned target growth of production in each major crop viz., cereals, pulses, oilseeds,
sugarcane, cotton, jute and so on.
(c) the targets of production of major inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, irrigation etc., and
(d) the strategy to be adopted to achieve the targets of crop production in general and the rate of
growth in agriculture in particular.
The Tenth Plan was a clear departure from this traditional presentation. It described the achievement/
non-achievement of the Ninth Plan (Table 7).
The Planning Commission must have been clearly ashamed of its target projections in the Ninth Plan.
It is clear from Table 6 that the actual production of foodgrain for the year 2001-02 (final year of the
Ninth Plan) was 212 million tonnes, as against the planned target of 234 million tonnes—a huge shortfall
of 22 million tonnes. In the case of oilseeds the actual output in 2001-02 was 21 million tonnes as against
the targeted figure of 30 million tonnes. This was also the case of sugarcane and cotton.
What was really pathetic was that the act production of oilseeds and cotton during the Ninth Plan was not
only less than the target production but less than the base level (1996-97) output. This was define negative
rate of growth. It is unfortunate that we could achieve Ninth plan targets even at the end of Tenth Plan.
th
Table 7 gives agricultural achievement during and 10 Plans. During the Tenth Plan period(2002-07
foodgrain production had increased to 216 million tonnes - it may be mentioned that the target of
foodgrain production was fixed at 234 million tonnes for the Ninth Plan period (2001 -02). There was,

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 125