‘The agriculture sector has been neglected after economic reforms’

Chandigarh, January 29, 2019: ‘The agriculture sector has been neglected after economic reforms which has resulted in a continuous decline in farm incomes. The transformation is not taking place in this sector because of the institutional bottlenecks in the import of inputs and technology for the farm sector, which have been removed in other sectors in the recent past’, said Prof.Ramesh Chand, Member NITI Aayog and Fifteenth Finance Commission, GOI while delivering Brij Narain Memorial lecture organized by Department of Economics, Panjab University, Chandigarh here today. He further added that the food processing sector in India, which is highly labour intensive, should have grown at a rate faster than the agricultural produce but it has not happened despite a separate ministry for it. Prof. Chand also underlined the fact that the prices of agricultural produce have risen much lesser than the rate of inflation, directly hitting the farmer. The states are not implementing several reforms like the Agricultural Market reforms. He extensively dwelt on the current issues in Indian agriculture and outlook. He gave an overview of how Indian agriculture has moved from scarcity to surplus and mentioned that by 2030 India will have to export at least 15% of the food production. He emphasized that healthy food must be grown and use of chemical inputs must be selective. An important issue brought about by him was that the subsidy to the farm sector is 4 times the investment in this sector. However, the Indian farm sector is still distressed. Prof. Upinder Sawhney, Chairperson of the Department introduced the speaker and Prof. Shankarji Jha, Dean of University Instructions honoured him. On this occasion, eminent economists, senior faculty, researchers students and other guests from the University and other institutions participated.