Aspects of Agrarian Distress and Rural Unemployment in West Bengal: A post reform analysis

Rukmini Thapa

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Performance of agriculture and its effects on employment and wages in the recent decades underscores the marginalization of rural livelihoods. In West Bengal, where over 70 per cent of agricultural workers own less than one hectare of crop land, the importance of a vibrant state of agriculture cannot be emphasised more. This paper underscores some alarming findings such as deceleration in growth rate of production and yield levels of food grains, high and chronic rural unemployment rate and wide differences in real wages in agriculture and non-agriculture between West Bengal and other major states. Using these findings, it aims to suggest that these are essentially the underlying factors that have fuelled mass out migration in casual labour that is evident from macro surveys. As merits of the institutional initiatives taken over three decades ago in West Bengal are waning away, multi-pronged measures are needed again to break the economic ‘impasse’.

Keywords: Agrarian Crisis; West Bengal; Unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q12 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-02-22, Revised 2015-10-08
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Published in Journal of Regional Development and Planning 2.4(2015): pp. 29-43

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