POLICIES ON DOUBLING FARMERS INCOME IN INDIA – A CRITICAL REVIEW

Abstract

The agriculture sector in India is the backbone of our economy. More than 55% of our population
depends on agriculture as our main stay. A relative quantity of farmers in Indian placid depend on
rainfall to commencement the agricultural inactivity. During the early days of independence, the prime
focus of the agriculture sector in India, was to enhance food security by raising the agricultural output.
The Green Revolution was a great strategy introduced by Shri M S Swaminathan, and aimed at the
same. Increase in productivity by the use of better agricultural technology, use of quality seeds,
fertilizers, better irrigation mechanisms and the use of agro chemicals aimed at improving the
agricultural output. In addition, an incentive structure was introduced like subsidies on farm inputs,
remunerative prices of some crops, public investment in agricultural sector. As such, the country was
able to mitigate the crisis of food shortage in the mid 1960s. The 1990s saw a negative trend in terms
of a disparity in the incomes of the farmer and the non agricultural worker. The Indian country as well
witnessed a majority of farmers attempt suicides in the period of 1995 to 2004. because there was a
sharp retardation in the output of agricultura. (Chand and Parappurathu, 2012). All this resulted in
the younger age groups to leave farming, causing detrimental effect on the future of agriculture in India.
Hence, the Government of India, led by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi realized the need to pay
special attention to the problems of our farmers. The new name Ministry of Agriculture and farmer
welfare was changed in the year 2015 from of the Ministry of Agriculture. It was recognized that the
agricultural income generated by a farmer is vital for addressing issues of agrarian distress (Chand,
2016). As such, the Prime Minister Shri Modi set out a goal to double the farmers income by 2022–
2023 and also to focus on farmer’s welfare, reduce agrarian distress and to reduce the disparity
between the income earned by the farmers and the income of the people working in non agricultural
occupations. The present paper aims to analyse the pros and cons of these policies and its impact on
the Indian agricultural sector.