Is West Bengal An Agriculturally Developed State?
The CPI top-notches, in their deceiving spree often forget that persons have sources of reliable statistics, and to their dismay - data of their own 'Left' Front Govt Published Statistics too. For many a year they are spending millions of public money from the state exchequer for the Ad Blitz to project WB as India 's no: 1 state in agriculture. And presently, just in the eve of the state election, their Ad Blitz has become like a Nazi Blitzkrieg, facing which Herr Go?bels may seem to be a child — "WB Is Already The No: 1 State In Agriculture: WB Is Going To Be The No: 1 State In Industries Too".
We would like to present some data, some bare facts, for the state of agriculture of the state of WB from the following sources: 1) Govt of WB - pre-budget Economic Survey, 2004-05; 2) West Bengal's Economy & Politics (original in Bengali) by Prof Ajit Narayan Basu, The Ex-Head Of The State Planning Board, Govt Of WB; 3) West Bengal's Agricultural Advancement - In The Light Of Alternative Statistics; and, Hunger (originals in Bengali) by Sacchidananda Dutta Roy, the Ex-Chief Of Bureau Of Aplied Econoics & State Statistics , Govt Of WB. For comparison with other states and countries, we shall cite data from the NSS 1998 reports and data available from the website of Food & Agricultural Organisation ( FAO ) Rome , an UN Agency well known.
Lets us look into Yield figures, because yield is the real measure of development, and not the figure of total production.
In the year 2002-03, the yield of Rice in WB was only 2463 KGS/Ha
In the same year the yield of Rice in Punjab was 3510 KGS/Ha
In the same year the yield of Rice in Tamil Nadu was 3350 KGS/Ha
In the same year the yield of Rice in Hariyana was 2724 KGS/Ha
In the same year the yield of Rice in Andhra Pradesh was 2621 KGS/Ha
Punjab has reached and crossed the present WB rice yield figure 30 years ago!
In that year, and in generally in recent years, WB comes to the 5 th position in terms of rice yield in India . Only in terms of total rice production, WB comes to the 1 st place in India - because WB has much more land under rice cultivation than in the other states mentioned above.
But now take a Global look and shiver:
In the year 2001 Japan had rice productivity, or yield, at 6635 KGS/Ha
In the year 2001 South Korea had rice productivity, or yield, at 6838 KGS/Ha
In the year 2001 Indonesia had rice productivity, or yield, at 4388 KGS/Ha
In the year 2001 Bangladesh had rice productivity, or yield, at 3402 KGS/Ha!!!
West Bengal had wheat yield of 2500 KGS/Ha in the year 2001.
Punjab had more than double of that figure.
But Egypt in that year had wheat yield figure of 6358 KGS/Ha — to which even Punjab stands as a child!!
? Almost or less than half of the agricultural land of WB can be labelled as 'irrigated'. Of the irrigated land, much more than half has been done by private initiative, and is under private ownership. Buying irrigation water from private source is very costly, at least 10 times of much more than the govt rate. At the close of last century WB was perhaps in the 9 th position among Indian states in terms of spread of irrigation!
? In terms of Land Utilisation Index, or Cropping Intensity , i.e., how many times a single piece of land in cultivated per year - WB comes behind Punjab, Haryana and UP (particularly west UP)!
? In terms of usages of Tractors and Power-Tillers (Hand-Tractors) WB was in the 8 th position among Indian States at the close of the last century!!
? The WB govt takes 'pride' for No: 1 state in Land Reforms. What that means? In actual terms, only less than 7% of the total agricultural land has passed from the ownership of rural 'rich' to the ownership of the rural 'poor' in last 56 years of land reform program in WB!! But, since last two decades a backward movement has started — inequality in land ownership is increasing, and WB is fast approaching the level of the inequality index (GINI - coefficient) of Bihar from almost the level of that of UP in terms of agricultural land ownership!!!
WB is still a largely food deficient state. 1 Abovementioned Prof Basu has shown the ever-widening gap between per capita food grain productions of WB and the rest of India in his book. 2 Mr. DuttaRoy in his book has covered the history of shameless falsification of agricultural statistics by the state govt since the start of green-revolution days.
It is interesting to look at the geography of the places where the CPI (Maoist) has created 'troubles' for the state administration. First, let us take the Bandowan block ( MANDAL ) of the Purulia district bordering Jharkhand. It is the worst block in Bengal in terms of what the able statistician and ex-chief of the WB Bureau of Applied Economics & Statistics Mr. Sachchidananda Dutta Roy calls the Food Security Index . Here his index stands at a paltry 26 at the beginning couple of years of this century, which is much lower than that of the second worst block. Here the Land Utilisation Index or Cropping Intensity stood at only 1.16! Productivity of rain-fed rice here is at 57% and that of potato it is less than 40% of the yield figures of the Singur Block or 48% and 54% respectively of the yield figures of the Pandua block!! (Both the Pandua and the Singur blocks of the Hooghly district have food security index at 65, which put them at the 'Lower-Middle' stage of food-security measure. But then, these latter two belongs to the 'highly developed' patches of West Bengal in terms of agricultural 'development'! ) The tribal population in Bandowan is almost 57% of the total; and 43% of total labour force (including all labour performed in agriculture and labour engaged in non-primary sectors) is made up of landless agro-workers. More than a fifth of those total labour forces are "marginal" workers who get very little de-facto employment even on daily basis. Less than half of the population is literate according to govt statistics, among females literacy rate is only 29%. So here stood a block with nearly a lakh population after a quarter century of 'left' rule!!! Now consider the other places where the Maoist party is acting and attracting media attention. Belpahari, Banshpahari, Binpur, Barikul, Barobazar all have 'very low' level of those Food Security indices within the range 37 to 47; all have high tribal population ratio of nearly 40% except Burobazar where it is 20%. Everywhere poverty, malnutrition, hunger, illiteracy, darkness, backwardness reigns supreme.
So, where stands WB in agricultural and agrarian development???
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