Agricultural growth, sustainability and poverty alleviation. Recent trends and major issues of reform
Rao, C.H.H.
Economic and Political Weekly 33(29/30): 1943-1948
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0012-9976 Document Number: 283706
It is argued that the reform process in India has not encountered much resistance from pressure groups because it has not made much headway in respect of de-bureaucratizing and de-politicizing the management of the infrastructure and in decentralizing rural development. In particular implementation of radical land reforms at the very start would have resulted in speedy demographic transition and effective trickle down mechanisms, as was the case in some of the east Asian countries. In India since redistribution of land by further lowering the legal ceiling on landholdings is not politically feasible and implementation of top-down subsidy-oriented poverty alleviation programmes is not likely to be effective, economic and social empowerment of the poor has to be achieved basically through productive employment and human development. This requires rapid broad-based labour-intensive growth.