UGC Report on Inter University Center on Rural - Ministry of Rural ...

seventy one to seventy five quintals. The MGR-I was six tonnes during the Kuruvai in Tamil
Nad.
This was the answer to all our prayers. At that time the idea was to grow grains with high
yields and release land for other high value crops. States like Karnataka, Andhra and Bengal
were the happening places where the action was going to be. Hybrids went up to around a
half million hectares. The promise was great also because this was the first real privatepublic
partnership. The nations finest agricultural research establishments worked on the
project. The seed producers were both in the public and the private sectors. The State Seed
Corporations were there as also Krishi Vigyan Kendras , but so were the well known big
name seed companies. Visiting some of them I remember the excitement. Then the whole
momentum failed.
The reasons of the failure were never quite clear. The seeds were expensive. Where the high
yielders would cost a few rupees and were self replicating, these had to be bought every year
and costs were in hundreds of rupees. But the yields were high and this could not be the
reason since per unit costs after the initial blow would compensate. The kisan is known to
count his pennies but also goes for profit. The front up costs were not taken up by the State.
This was the heyday of ‘reform’ and no subsidy was to be given. China meanwhile was
subsidizing them in a big way. Initially the idea was that water would be saved. Later it
turned out that per unit of output of paddy the water requirement, if everything went of well
was lower, but the stress requirements were severe. If on the d day water did not come, the
yield fell. In the South and the East with poorly managed canals and ground water getting
scarce this was probably a reason. Again nobody would own them. If the yield was not there,
the farmer did not have anybody to turn to. The company would say it was his fault and we
just had not developed the regulatory mechanism. Anyway the coverage went down to a
measly couple of lakh hectares. The State which would in its heyday really look after the
duplication and supply of seeds just walked away.
Earlier in the year in the Rice Production Programme meetings, one read that the Hybrids
were to be sponsored again. Newer varieties had been released and it seems that a real effort
was made. The coverage figures are amazingly good and if we persist for problems will
emerge, as they always do on a new experiment on a mass scale, the rake off will be high.
The issue being emphasized is that technology application is not just a technique, but a
system question and we need holistic answers to questions.
The strategy has to be to help those who help themselves, by access to support of local
efforts at market information access, working finance, standards setting, skill enhancement
and family welfare and worker health measures. The employment and poverty reduction
results of such development in rural areas are dramatic. Much the same kind of approaches
are necessary in diverse fields like education and health. There is widespread interest in the
“cluster approach” to development. Successes achieved in linking community skills to larger
markets, which is what the method is all about should be attempted to be crafted in the social
arena also. In some the links are obvious. For example a good human resource development
strategy helps in enforcing standards, which are a precondition of large scale entry into world
markets. Sometimes recycling helps in meeting environmental standards, for example in
leather clusters. The synergy here has not been used as much as it should be. Leadership in
integrating artisan based advantages with markets should be supported and much the same
skills can be harnessed for social development policies.
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