Gujarat agricultural growth now just 1.5%, says top economist; was preceded by negative growth in 2014-16

Prof YK Alagh

Even as Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has claimed, while belatedly releasing the party’s manifesto, that Gujarat has recorded “an average growth rate of 10% in the last five years… at a time when there was no boom in the global or national economy”, veteran economist Prof YK Alagh has told Counterview that the growth rate for agriculture at constant prices (discounting inflation) has been about 1.5% over the last two years.
Known to be one of the topmost Indian experts on Indian agriculture, Prof Alagh said, “The Gujarat government and the Government of India have still not released the figures of agricultural growth rate at constant prices. However, whatever I could gather on the basis of the documents released by the state government, I think, the growth rate shouldn’t be more than 1.5%.”
Prof Alagh said, earlier, the state averaged “reasonably good rate of growth” between 4.5 and 6%, thanks to the availability of Narmada waters, which was widely used by farmers across the state, adding, however, “Progress in agriculture of late appears to have been tardy.”
Significantly, Jaitley, while releasing the manifesto, did not say whether the 10% rate of growth was at constant prices (discounting inflation) or at current prices (which includes rate of inflation).

The Gujarat government’s “Socio-Economic Review”, one of the budget documents released in February 2017, providing the actual figures of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP, at 2011-12 prices), said that GSDP for agriculture in 2011-12 was Rs 98,015 crore. It went down by a whopping 16.01% in 2012-13, but bounced back to reach 1,07,483 crore in 2013-14, up by 30.57%.

GSDP for agriculture: Socio-Economic Review, February 2017, Gujarat government

However, thereafter, the figures show, the GSDP for agriculture decelerated in the next two years – Rs 1,06,246 crore in 2014-15, a fall of 1.15%, and Rs 1,04,138 crore in 2015-16, a fall of 1.98%. GSDP -- let alone for agriculture -- has so far not released any figures for fiscal 2016-17.
Meanwhile, talking with the media on the BJP election manifesto on Monday, Prof Hemant Shah, an economist-publicist attached with the non-political Loshahi Bacho Andolan (Save Democracy Movement), claimed, the figure of 10% rate of growth that Jaitley was speaking about was “at current prices, and if this figure is true, the actual growth, discounting inflation, would be around 5%.”
An expert on rural issues who teaches economics in a college attached with the Gujarat University, Prof Shah continued, “I don’t know the actual figures, but I doubt if the state government would have achieved even this rate. It has been involved in massively manipulating agricultural growth.”
He explained, “The actual growth in agriculture is calculated on the basis of the usage of water for irrigation, a practice which Narendra Modi, as Gujarat chief minister, stopped in 2004. Thereafter, the agricultural rate of growth has all been a guesswork, guided by political exigencies.”

Source: Socio-Economic Review, February 2017

Prof Shah continued, a major reason for the poor show in agriculture in the recent past is, though 52 lakh farmers and 68 lakh agricultural labourers, in 1.2 crore people, are directly associated with farm activities, and 3.6 crore population is (55% of the state) are dependent on agriculture, yet farming is not proving to be sustainable.
“Not only farmers do not get a viable price for their agricultural produce, ruining farmers, leading to suicide cases, a farmer family, an average, earns just about Rs 6,426 per month. Worse, its income attributable from farming is less than half, only Rs. 3,078. The remaining income is earned from animal husbandry and salary from sundry labour and miscellaneous tasks”, Prof Shah underlined.

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

Guha plans book to counter Dalit, Marxist, and right-wing critics of Gandhi, recalls Modi’s 'pernicious lie' on Patel

Let me first confess: writing about an event three weeks after it has taken place is no good, especially for a newsperson. However, ever since I attended the public lecture by well-known historian Ramachandra Guha on May 18, organised by Sarthak Prakashan for the release of the Gujarati edition of his book monumental book "India After Gandhi", frankly, I kept wondering if he had said anything newsworthy apart from what had already appeared in the media ever since the book's first edition came out in 2007. Call it my inertia or whatever.

Unchecked urbanisation, waste dumping: Study warns of 'invited disaster' as khadi floods threaten half of Surat

An action research report, “Invited Disaster: Khadi Floods in Surat City”, published by two civil rights groups, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti and the People's Union for Civil Liberties, Surat, states that nearly half of Gujarat's top urban conglomerate—known for its concentration of textile and diamond polishing industries—is affected by the dumping of debris and solid waste, along with the release of treated and untreated sewage into the khadis (rivulets), thereby increasing the risk of flood disaster.

Two decades on, hunger still haunts Gujarat: Survey exposes stark gap behind poverty claims

A Niti Aayog report , released about two years ago, estimated that in Gujarat — which our powers-that-be have long considered a model state — 11.66% of people are "multidimensionally poor," a term referring to an index that seeks to estimate "multiple and simultaneous deprivations" at the household level across three macro categories: health, education, and living standards.

Search This Blog