Corporate growth could be wholesome, but agricultural growth is dismal

Share sales, IT sector expansion, strides in science and technology etc may be comfy in the country, but the lot of the farmers are not that cosy. In fact, the farmers have not gained much in wealth creation for themselves.

When we are skyrocketing in space age applications, back on the land, the tillers and the sowers are trying to inch forward in their life realms.

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has underscored the need for doubling the agricultural growth rate at the earliest.

Delivering a lecture at the G B Pant University in Uttarkhand, he spoke about the urgent need to provide more investments in the farm sector, boost productivity and make the ryots' lives livable, if not prosperous.

In recent years, there have been thousands of cases of farmers’ suicide. Perhaps, there might have been slight improvement in the situation.

But one should ponder over the dichotomy between the rich enriching themselves at one go on account of the measures launched by the government, and the farmers and the poor not being able to catch up with the all-round developments otherwise. If they wallow in misery and penury for years together, one cannot call the country a welfare state even if it achieves gloriously in other sectors.

MNCs, global and national, may be going on a development-spree, the nation may be brimming with wealth, but if the downtrodden are not looked after well, there would be nothing to gloat about on becoming aristocratic in other spheres. The main plank is the farming sector and the farmers constitute the mainstream.

The economy has been thrown open to the money seekers at one go, and they readily flourish, but welfare measures have not kept up pace with the prevailing welfare set-up available in other open economies.