AIMS3: Paper for the FOSET 5 th Technology Congress, 2005 1 1 A AG GR RI I C CU UL LT TU UR RA AL L I I N NF FR RA AS ST TR RU UC CT TU UR RE E &M MA AR RK KE ET T S ST TA AB BI I L LI I S SA AT TI I O ON N S SU UP PP PO OR RT T S SY YS ST TE EM MParthapratim Chakravorty * Siddhartha Deb Mukhopadhyay ** Introduction AN ECONOMIC DISCOURSE: DEVELOPMENT SEEN AS A MOVE TOWARDS SELF -RELIANCE Agriculture forms the ‘core competence’ of the entire Indian economy. In a way, developmen t of the nation as a whole is largely equated to the development of the agricultural sector. Conceptually, this was the original development equation of India as a nation. Of late, the focus of all our major developmental projects has finally shifted on to the agricultural sector. Such is the claim of our entire political pretext. The agriculture sector requires massive investments. Such investments have to be through credit-enabled private investment and enhanced public investment. The Finance Minister intends to double the flow ofagricultural credit in three years. i All attempts towards development must be self-reliant in the first place. Tagore, the pioneer of the Indian co-operative movement and rural development programmes, given us more than a clue to a working model. We have also seen an interpretation of his model manifested in some of his utterly incomplete experiments with rural development, with co-operative movement, with self-reliance. The crux of his “Co-operative Principle’ was that in this world of ‘have’ and have-not’, the poorer people are poor because they do not aspire, do not hope; “Where the ‘have-nots’ can aspire to a better life, hope itself is a real asset”. ii All our developmen t projects t herefore must be looking for reinstating that hope in the public psyche. Whatever message is conveyed by the textbook indices like GDP growth rate, reducing trade deficit, fiscal deficit, rate of inflation, etc. without reinstating the hope, no major advancements can be made. Tagore found a way in togetherness of the people, as hope is the only bondage among the masses. In other words, sheer power of scale, or the lack of it tells on productivity and performance. We already know that a segregated effort often leads to a vicious cycle: low input Æ low risk-taking ability Æ low investment Æ low returns Æ low input. Optimal balancing ofresources and returns from it demands a critical minimum of resources, which can be achieved by co-operatives or syndicates. Given that the co-operative model was not much ofa success except for a few, and given that the currently booming ISP/ITeS business is a perfect example of syndication model iii that is found in Tagore’s model of fair, it would be wise to try the latter model for all our development projects. Knowingly or not, our plans are already moving towards adopting the tested model of syndication and its techniques.STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMFrom such a perspective, when we ask a simple question that whether our agriculture is self- reliant enough to play the lead role in our national development, we get an even simpler and rather blatant answer ‘No’! Our agriculture is not yet self-sustained. It was fifty years back, and still is heavily dependent on subsidies. The Budget Speech admits the shortfall. Without the subsidies, our agriculture is still not able to survive a single cropping cycle while subsidies play one of the major instrumental roles in our electoral politics. According to the * IT Entrepreneur, CEO of SanBIZ Software ** Agriculture Scientist, Senior Lecturer, Visva-Bharati
