Page 97 - DECO303_INDIAN_ECONOMY_ENGLISH

Indian Economy

Notes rains” maintains good even today, after closely six decades of planning. In simple terms,
agricultural planning has been a failure.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

7. During the ……………………, the Planning Commission has fixed the target of 4 per cent,
rate of growth in agriculture, as if this is the first time such a “high” rate of growth has
been fixed.

8. The Planning Commission has appointed a special …………………… to monitor this rate
of growth.
9. The …………………… in crop production from year to year shows that there is very little
planning in Indian agriculture.

6.3 Green Revolution: The Future Prospects

It is important for you to note that green Revolution started in the 1960’s centred around the
usage of semi-dwarf high yielding varieties responsive to irrigation and chemical fertilisers
produced good outcomes in giving a big boost to the production of wheat in the initial stage and
the production of rice in the subsequent stage. But more currently, it has been felt that high
yielding varieties have attained a plateau and the scope for future increase in production seems
to be very restricted. In other words, the seed-water-fertilizer technology has possibly exhausted
its potential and is at present at a point of diminishing returns.

The Planning Commission put a target of food grains production of the order of 300 million
tonnes by 2007-08 but the real production was 216 million tonnes. The question broached is:
What are the prospects of achieving this target?
Table 6.5: Average Food grain Yield

Kg per hectare
1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2011-12
Food grains 719 894 1,156 1,490 2,059
Wheat 950 1,382 1,921 2,449 3,140
Rice 1,000 1,158 1,470 1,827 2,372

Source: Indian Economy, Datt and Sundharam, S. Chand
Some such as Harish Damodaran do not subscribe to the opinion that agricultural production
has attained a plateau. Data given in Table 6.5 points out that food grain yield has continued to
rise from 719 Kg in 1960s to 1,490 kg. The rise in yield has been more pronounced in the instance
of wheat from 950 Kg in 1960s to about 2,450 Kg in 1990s and 3,140 in 2011-12, though in rice too
yield has increased from 1,000 Kg in 1960s to 2,372 Kg in 2011-12. While bringing more regions
under High Yielding Varieties, highest yield rates may have depicted some signs of stagnation.
It would, hence, be essential to understand the theoretically obtainable maximum yield and the
actual realizable maximum. It may be observed that the first Green Revolution variety Sharbati
Sonora had illustrated a yield potential of about 3.4 tonnes per hectare. The subsequent jump in
yield variety arrived from Kalyansona in 1970 to 4.2 tonnes. For a main breakthrough, the
country had to wait till 1994 when latest rust-resistant varieties such as UP2338 jacked up yields
to 5.1 tonnes and PBW 343 in 1995 to increase it further to 5.4 tonnes per hectare.

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