Dr.Banarsi Lal and
Dr.Shahid Ahamad
Agriculture forms the backbone of the Indian economy. In our country around 70 per cent of population seeks employment in agricultural sector. Majority of the farmers in India are small, marginal and agricultural labourers and a large number of them are either unemployed or underemployed. If we look at the contribution of this sector to the total Gross Domestic Product (14.4 per cent), this percentage dependence on agriculture seems to be high and indicates to the intensity of disguised unemployment and under-employment in this sector. The employment opportunities in this sector have been declined due to the application of labour saving technology declined public investment and lifting of quantitative restrictions on imports of agricultural products. Also the urban organised sector does not appear to be promising in absorbing growing workforce. This is evident from decline in the absolute number of jobs in public sector enterprises due to retrenchment and disinvestment policy. Although, urban informal sector is growing very fast and a large numbers of youths are absorbed by it but the exodus of rural workers in urban areas is creating a serious problem, to the carrying capacity of urban sector. Under these circumstances, the viable option for providing gainful employment to the growing rural workforce and to lessen the burden of manpower in agriculture seems to be in generating more employment in the rural-non farm sector.
During the planning period, rural development strategy has shifted from growth oriented to welfare oriented and further to empowerment oriented. Our development strategy was based on trickledown theory up to the Fourth Plan in which emphasis was laid on acceleration of growth on the presumption that its benefits would percolate down to the lowest strata of society. This top down approach could not prove effective in alleviating rural poverty. From the Fifth Plan, Government of India tilted its development strategy towards the welfare of downtrodden and underprivileged sections of rural society. Since then, a large number of self-employment programmes have been launched by the Government of India. One of the drawbacks of these programmes was that the group entrepreneurship was not followed in them. Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWACRA) was the only programme which was based on the group approach, covering 10-15 poor rural women in a group. The major objective of DWACRA was to develop the income generating skills among the rural women. Training of Rural Youths for Self Employment (TRYSEM) was another self-employment programme. The major objective of which was to develop technical skills among rural youths. In 1999, Government of India started a new self-employment programme called as Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), which is based on group approach. Major objective of this programme is to establish a large number of rural enterprises. This is a holistic programme covering all aspects of self-employment, viz., organisation of the rural poor in to the self-help groups (SHGs). It is credit-cum-subsidy programme. It involves the banks in the planning, preparation of projects, identification of clusters, infrastructure planning, capacity building and choice activity of SHGs. This programme also involves market intelligence, development of markets, consultancy services and institutional arrangements for marketing of the goods. Review of all these self-employment schemes indicates that the policy focus has been largely on poverty alleviation rather than on creation of income and wealth on sustainable basis through investment in productive employment generating activities. Beneficiaries of most of these schemes are poor and illiterate who lack necessary skills to run the activities. A big or medium enterprise can easily hire the workers with different skills. It is not possible in micro enterprise to have access to all these skills and due to lack of necessary skills, many of them could not survive .Thus, development of rural industries under group entrepreneurship can be a good option in this regard. Expansion of rural industrialisation can play a big role in abating distress migration from rural areas and stopping drain, thus reducing the pressure on urban civic services and boosting rural income and employment.
In India, total food grain production in 2011-12 was 252 million tonnes. India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world after China and first in milk production in the world. Our country is also having largest cattle population in the world. These agricultural products are partially utilized by the food-processing industries. For example in our country only two per cent of fruits and vegetables are processed as compared to 70 per cent in Brazil,30 per cent in Thialand,78 per cent in Philippines and 80 per cent in Malaysia. We lack proper storage and processing facilities due to which we have annual post-harvest losses of more than Rs. 50,000 crores. We can reduce these losses by improving the transport facilities, storage and processing of agricultural products.
On the basis of demand and supply parameters, food industry in India can play a vital role in increasing rural income and employment through agricultural commercialisation, diversification and value addition. For promoting group entrepreneurship among the rural youths, there is need to identify the unemployed educated youths and organise them in groups for jointly taking up some enterprising projects. Each group would have 5-10 rural youths trained in different skills. Such type of groups may also be involved with Swarnjayanti Swarozgar Yojana by involving the beneficiaries of the programme. Agro and non-agro based rural small scale industries can be established by involving the unemployed youths. These industries should be based on the locally available resources. The funds of these industries would be mobilised through bank loans and subsidy to the target groups. Gram Panchayats should be entrusted the responsibility of identifying the different type of unemployed workers willing to join the group .It has been observed that various small scale enterprises could not survive due to lack of market support. Their growth or decline depends on markets, access to technology, credit and skills. There is need to develop a suitable market mechanism for the products of these enterprises. The marketing structure of KVIC and other government outlets can be utilized. There is need to build brand equity for their products. Cooperative marketing institutions can also be used.
Efforts from NABARD, other commercial banks, rural local government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are required to promote group entrepreneurship. Government should also provide subsidy to the group in the same way as the self-help group under SGSY programme. Transfer of cost-effective technology and its constant up gradation is necessary for raising productivity, improving product quantity, competitiveness and increasing profitability of the enterprises. The fast growing urban informal sector is putting pressure on the carrying capacity of urban sector due to influx of workforce from rural areas. Development of group entrepreneurship among the rural youths will be a good alternative strategy for rural industrialisation. In order to create conducive environment for the promotion of group entrepreneurship in the rural areas, various interventions such as management of required inputs, finance, market mechanism, revitalizing the existing training infrastructure and use of modern technologies are essential.
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