Agricultural Development and Employment Patterns in India: A Comparative Analysis of Punjab and Bihar

Focusing on two contrasting agricultural growth scenarios of Punjab and Bihar, the present study attempts to highlight the dynamics of rural transformation in terms of employment patterns, income levels and consumption standards of the non-cultivating rural labour households in these two Indian States. Contrary to the prevalent myth in some quarters that agricultural growth, as witnessed in the Post-Green Revolution period, has tended to bypass the rural labour households, our study shows a contrasting picture; while the gains of agricultural growth in Punjab have tended to trickle-down to the rural labour households; their counterparts in the semi-feudal agrarian structure of Bihar have failed to share the gains of whatever little agricultural development has taken place there.
Without gainsaying the need for land reforms, the study brings to the fore the fact that in the on-going socio-economic-politico milieu of the rural society, agricultural development coupled with economic rejuvenation is alone capable of solving the problem of socio-economic deprivation confronting the rural proletariat. Based upon a very comprehensive survey of 300 sample households spread over nearly equally distanced eight villages from the pre designed urban focal town in each of the two States and another of 150 migrant agricultural labourers in the sample villages of Punjab, the study clearly corroborates that gains of agricultural development have been shared by different strata of the rural population in Punjab. In Bihar, the growth rate has been unsteady and quite insignificant, and furthermore, whatever little growth has been recorded, the benefits of that also have failed to trickle-down to the rural poor. Our analysis of Punjab-Bihar contrast also reinforces the fact that labour effort alone does not seem to be very crucial in the modern system of agricultural production; rural institutions and technology-in-use also play a decisive role in augmenting the level of production and also in increasing and diversifying the employment and earning opportunities. The conclusions emerging from the study are expected to be useful for the researchers as well as the policy-makers.