DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE : TOWARDS THE YEAR 2000
2.1. The programme of development during the Seventh Plan must be set against the perspective of the next 15 years: 1985-2000. The investment programmes and the policy initiatives for the Seventh and subsequent Plans must be related to the goals that the nation has for the year 2000, as it emerges into the 21st century. In more concrete terms this means the elimination of poverty and creating conditions of near full employment, the satisfaction of the basic needs of the people in terms of food, clothing and shelter, attainment of universal elementary education, and access to health facilities for all. It should be the aim to create, by the year 2000, the conditions for self-sustaining growth in terms of both the capacity to finance growth internally and the development of technology. In the sphere of industry, efficiency must be progressively improved so as to attain international competitiveness in major products. The aim should be to make India a modern, technologically progressive economy with expanding capacity to provide the basic material and cultural requisites of well-being for all people.
2.2 The attainment of these goals requires:
(i) action to sustain and enhance the momentum of economic expansion and technological development;
(ii) adoption of effective promotional measures to raise the productivity and incomes of the poorer sections of the population, poorer regions and poorer States;
(iii) expansion and qualitative improvement in facilities for health, education and other basic civic amenities;
(iv) measures for bringing about a sharp reduction in the rate of population growth.
LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY 2.3 The long-term strategy should take into account the objective conditions in the economy and the likely developments over the planning horizon. The major aspects relevant to the formulation of the strategy and the associated policy thrusts are spelt out in what follows.
2.4 The demographic perspective provides the starting point for determining a long-term development strategy. The persons who will join the labour force in the next 15 years have already been born. In absolute terms, around 120 million persons will be added to the labour force over the next 15 years. Thus, creation of opportunities for productive employment of a growing labour force assumes top priority. Given the present distribution of population and labour force and the substantial investments in social and economic overhead capital required for the absorption of labour in urban areas, it is necessary to create productive and satisfying job opportunities in rural areas through development of agriculture, irrigation, rural infrastructure and promotion of village and cottage industries. This would both reduce the disparities between the urban and rural areas and moderate rural-urban migration.
2.5 The importance of agriculture in the Indian economy, the increasing demand for food in the proccess of growth, the favourable income and employment implication of more intensive agricultural development and the severity of the balance of payments constraint require that continued fast agricultural growth and self-sufficiency in food must remain a top priority concern of planning in India. In planning for food self-sufficiency, adequate and balanced attention must be paid to cereals, oilseeds, pulses, fruits and vegetables and protective foods like milk, eggs, meat and fish.
2.6 The demographic perspective also implies a progressive decline in the size of holdings. Hence the challenge on the agricultural front can be met only if obstacles to increased productivity of small farms are removed. Experience shows that small farmers when given the necessary inputs and facilities are able to achieve substantial increases in production. Therefore, every effort has to be made to enable small farmers to realise their growth potential. Properly organised extension services can play a major role in this matter. However, given the small size and fragmented nature of holdings, individual initiative will need to be supplemented by appropriate group action so as to enable small farmers to make effective and economical use of facilities like irrigation, credit, marketing and storage. The cooperative movement offers considerable potential for the organisation of these activities but the realisation of this potential depends vitally on the successful implementation of
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reforms designed to overcome the many weaknesses of the movement. (The issues relating to the cooperative movement are further discussed in Vol II, Chapter I)
2.7 The fairly high rate of growth of population neutralises to a significant extent the fruits of economic growth and uses up part of the potential savings which could otherwise be used to raise capital per head and the productivity of the labour force at a faster pace. Effective measures to reduce the rate of growth of population are imperative and must command priority of action. Apart from the expansion of family welfare services, sustained improvement in education (particularly of girls), and health care facilities (designed particularly to reduce the rate of infant mortality) and improved status of women in social and economic life are essential for the success of the family welfare programme and voluntary acceptance of the small family norm.
32.8 A sustained improvement in the quality of life will involve increased public expenditure on health, education and culture. The requirements for housing and urban infrastructure are as pressing, since nearly 60 per cent of the addition to population between now and the year 2000 will be in urban areas. There is already a growing dissatisfaction regarding the availability and quality of basic civic amenities in urban areas. The growth in population will further aggravate this and new and innovative strategies will be needed to raise resources for meeting the requirements of urban development and infrastructure.
2.9 The demographic perspective implies a substantial increase in the requirements of capital for the provision of social infrastructure and for maintaining the tempo of economic growth. Notwithstanding the considerable scope that undoubtedly exists for improving the utilisation and productivity of capital, it must be recognised that India is passing through a fairly capital-intensive phase of development. This is valid both for agriculture and industry, particularly when one takes into account the capital- intensity of supporting investments in infrastructure. To sustain the growth momentum, it is therefore necessary to raise the domestic savings rate, and public policies should be supportive of increased savings effort.
2.10 Effective energy planning must form an important constituent of long-term strategy. The demand for commercial energy is bound to increase in the course of development because of both increase in output and substitution of non-commercial energy by commercial energy. Effective measures to moderate the growth of demand for commercial energy and energy saving technologies for conservation will be needed. Dependence on imported energy will have to be contained within safe limits. Coal should remain the king-pin of India's energy policy and it should replace oil wherever possible. A long-term policy in regard to higher production of soft coke, its transportation and pricing relative to other forms of fuel needs to be pursued for greater use of coke in the household sector. Likewise, higher production of hard coke and better design of boilers would be necessary for higher usage of coal in industry. The presently known and prognosticated reserves of natural gas can help in the task of restraining the demand for petroleum. Energy planning must also pay attention to finding cost- effective solutions to meeting the energy requirements of rural areas.
2.11 In spite of all the measures suggested above, it is likely that India's imports of crude oil and petroleum products will increase over time. The dependence on imported oil implies that orderly management of India's balance of payments will require vigorous export promotion measures as well as efficient import substitution policies (designed, for example, to reduce dependence on imported vegetable oils).
2.12 The most important structural change to be brought about in the perspective period will be the accelerated rate of 'growth of industry and its much greater relative contribution to national output and employment. Indian industry would have to grow at 8-9 per cent per annum during this period. An efficient and flexible industrial structure is needed to sustain the country's export drive as well as to meet the input requirements of agriculture and the increasing demand for articles of mass consumption. Through a reform of management system as well as the generation of pressure for increased domestic competition, a climate must be created which is more conducive to growth, reduction of cost and improvement in quality. The modernisation of industry and its technological upgradation will call for strong linkages with the existing large infrastructure for science and technology.
2.13 During the past four decades, rapid advances in electronics have brought about great changes in several fields such as development in solid state electronics, lasers, integral optics and telecommunication systems based on digital electronics. These developments are expected to continue. Other new frontier technologies are emerging such as biotechnology, robotics and new materials. India, as it enters the 21st century, will have to keep abreast of these developments.
2.14 The future development of both agriculture and industry will require increasing application of science and technology so as to increase factor productivity. The management of science and technology development will need to be reviewed on a continuing basis for ensuring that the pace of technical progress is enhanced. Arrangements for access to technology need to be improved. Adaptation and absorption of foreign technologies will
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have to be interlinked with facilities for research and development so as to promote technological self-reliance to the maximum extent possible. Simultaneously, the quality of education will need to be upgraded so that the knowledge and skills of the labour force can be improved in order to facilitate faster introduction of new science and technology based processes.
2.15 Planning for accelerated growth in a country of India's size and diversity must have built-in flexibility to cope with the many sources of uncertainity which characterise modern economic life. To add to the effectiveness of the planning process, there must be adequate emphasis on decentralisation to provide the needed element of built-in flexibility as well as greater involvement of people at all levels. This will ensure that our development programmes, particularly those relating to agriculture and rural development, will take adequate account of regional diversities in resource endowment, needs and development potential.
2.16 Development has to be based on the use of resources like land, water, minerals, etc. If it is to be sustainable over the long run, it must be based on a pattern of resource use that shows concern for conservation and the preservation of the environment. Hence a judicious blend of economic and environmental concerns should inform all our development programmes in future.
The Resource Base 2.17 The resource base of the country consists of: (i) human resources; (ii) non-renewable resources which are an endowment of nature and whose total size gets depleted with time; and (iii) renewable resources which can be continuously created and whose base can be expanded through human efforts.
Human Resources 2.18 Later in this chapter, human resources in terms of demographic trends upto 2000 AD and beyond are dealt with, as also the development of human resources through programmes in education, health, social welfare and science and technology. In the long run, the improvement in the standard of living of a country depends largely on the nature of technology which it adopts. It is advanced technology which can create sufficient surplus to generate resources for accelerated growth. However, the avoidance of a mismatch between the technology adopted and the institutional structure, including the organisation and distribution system of a country, is very important. Thus, the technology revolution in India and the associated necessary changes in the social strata and the growth of human capital and communication have to keep pace with each other over this long term horizon.
Land Resources 2.19 The total geographical area of India is 329 million hectares. The net area sown is about 143 million hectares, which is about 43.5 per cent of the total geographical area. The area under forests is 75 million hectares which is about 23 per cent of the total area. The uncultivable and fallow lands amount to 100.45 million hectares.
2.20 The non-expandable land resources have to accommodate the competing demands for production of food, fodder, fibre and fuel, minerals, urbanisation, non-agricultural land use, etc., for the increasing human and animal population. It is estimated that in the year 2000 the human population will be a little less than the 1 billion mark and the animal population will also have increased considerably. The per capita availability of land which was about 0.94 hectare in 1951 will decline to 0.33 hectare in the year 2000. Thus the decreasing land: man ratio poses a great challenge for optimising the use of land resources for different purposes.
2.21 At present about 17.8 million hectares are reported to be under various urban and rural settlements including space used by roads, railways, water bodies, mines, defence and industrial installations. By the year 2000 it is estimated that an additional 6 million hectares will be required for these non-agricultural purposes.
2.22 The research activities for optimising production from rain- fed farming, irrigated agriculture, and non-farm land put to other uses including fodder and fuel will have to keep pace with the changing requirements of land use. Proper dovetailing of national research programmes and land development strategies will have to be ensured.
2.23 About 105 million hectares of cultivable lands and 8 million hectares of non-forests and non-agricultural lands are subject to widespread soil erosion. In addition, 43 million hectares of area has been degraded through water-logging, alkalinity, ravines and shifting cultivation. An estimated six thousand million tonnes of soil are lost annually through erosion and degradation, along with plant nutrients ranging between 5.37 and 8.4 million tonnes. A primary concern of development will have to be to arrest further degradation by proper land use and soil conservation and to also nurse back to health the degraded soil to stock a highly productive agriculture.
Water Resources 2.24 India is endowed with substantial water resources. The country's average annual rainfall is about 119.4 cm which, when considered over the geographical area of 329 million hectares amounts to 393 million hectare-metres. The total surface flows in India are
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assessed at 178 million hectare-metres. However, on account of limitation of physiography, topography, geology, dependability, quantity and the present state of technology, only a part of this can be developed for irrigation. It has been assessed that about 67 million hectare-metres of surface water and 26.5 million hectare- metres of ground water can be developed and utilised. The gross cropped area that can utlimately be irrigated has been assessed to be 113 million hectares as against the possible total cropped area of 200 million-hectares on full development of irrigation potential. Available data, however, indicate that the ultimate gross area irrigated can be much higher than 113 million hectares, if a national view is taken on the utilisation of water resources and consequent policy measures are adopted and full use is made of the technological advances such as inter-basin transfers of water, large-scale lifting of water from steams and rivers through pumping, and modernisation of irrigation systems.
2.25 The massive development of irrigation in India after Independence has been recognised as one of the major factors which have contributed to the spectacular rise in the production of food and fibre. The aggregate irrigation potential at the end of 1979-80, the beginning of the Sixth Plan, was 56.6 million hectares. During the Sixth Plan an additional potential of about 11 million hectare was created, thus making a total of about 68 million hectares by the year 1984-85. It is necessary to develop the entire irrigation potential of 113 million hectares by the year 2010.
Demographic Perspective 2.26 The population recorded an annual rate of growth of 2.25 per cent in the decade 1971-1981. This is to be compared with the growth rate of 2.22 per cent between 1961 and 1971. In the two decades between 1951 and 1971, there was an almost constant fertility rate and a perceptible decline in mortality rate; but in the decade 1971-81, there was decline both in fertility and in mortality. On the basis of the projected birth and death rates of 23.7 and 8.4 per thousand, respectively, during 1996-2001 from the level of 33.2 and 12.2 during 1981-86, the population in the year 2000 has been estimated to reach 972 million. The annual growth rate of population would be reduced from 2.10 per cent during 1981-86 to 1.53 per cent during 1996-2001 as shown in Table 2.1. The population in the year 2000 would have been higher by nearly 78 million if the past trend had been simply extrapolated. The projection made here takes into account the effects of a well-organised family planning programme that would be put into operation during the perspective plan period.* On the basis of present reckoning, the net reproduction rate (NRR) will be reduced to 1** only by the period 2006-2011.
Age Structure 2.27 Nearly 40 per cent of the Indian population was below 15 years of age in 1980, whereas only 6 per cent of
**A net reproduction rate of 1.00 broadly means that each generation of mothers is having exactly enough daughters to replace itself in the population.
