Y.S. RANA :
CHANDIGARH—A country was facing acute famine and hundreds of people were dying every day with hunger. One day a Sant came to the king who boasted of his ‘unaccounted wealth’ and said that he was the richest man of the world. Sant said “No,” you are the poorest man of the world.” King asked ‘How’. The Sant said,” If you are the richest man of the world, purchase two loaves of bread for me, how are you richest man of the world when you cannot purchase two loaves of bread with this unaccounted wealth.”
Now, world is gearing itself to meet the aftershocks of COVID 19 which will put the system in mess because of wide spread hunger, diseases and unemployment etc. Prof Steev H Hankey, Director, Johan Hapkins University has provided the answer while talking to a media person. Sharing his experience as principal adviser to government Yugoslavia during Balkan war said that Yugoslavia came out of crisis because it was primarily an agriculture country. Hence, COVID 19 would not impact severely India because more than 60 per cent of its population depends on agriculture and allied activities for their livelihood.
Prof Steev has conveyed a message to the political class that agriculture could only save the country from hunger, disease etc. According to Census 2011, there were 263 million people engaged in agriculture sector. Over half of them became agriculture labourers—a trend observed for the first time in the past 40 years. It is so because the cultivators are losing their land and forced to work in other sectors resulted decline in food grains production and increase in number of hungry.
While all across the country every state has recorded decline in net sown area. Himachal Pradesh has witnessed loss of 795.18 thousand hectares in area under food grains. In the recent past, the rate of diversion of agriculture land for other activities has gone up. In Tricity around 90,000 hectares of agriculture land has been diverted during the past one decade.
Rapid urbanization has led to rapid conversion of farm land to non-farm sector while the numbers of mouths to feed multiply every year. Agricultural rich States like Punjab and Haryana are in a spree to promote SEZs on prime agriculture land. Between 2007-12 States have been witnessing rapid urbanization and decline in agriculture land at the rate of over three per cent annually.
In 1950, contribution of primary sector in GDSP was 71.1 per cent which came down to 18 per cent while contribution of secondary sector has increased to 33.44 per cent from 9.50 per cent. Since 1951 much has been changed and large chunk of ‘Bharat’ had been converted into ‘India.’ It may cause serious implications for the people at large. In Himachal Pradesh while growth rate of agriculture sector has been less than two per cent compared to industrial sector 10 per cent.
Across the country, picture is not so rosy. Between 1990 and 2003, the cultivated area went down by around 1.5 per cent. This may not seem significant to many but in absolute terms it translates to more than 21 lakh hectares. It this area was brought under wheat production it would amount to mind-boggling production of 57 lakh tones which can feed more than 4.3 crore hungry people every year. And on the other, land under non-agricultural uses has gone up by 34 lakh hectares between 1990 and 2004.
Between agriculture and industry sectors which sector will have the priority, the present day SEZ rules and Acts do not answer this puzzle.