Rural Development In Punjaba Success Story Going Astray Autar S Dhesi Gurmail Singh by Autar S. Dhesi & Gurmail Singh 9780415456814, 0415456819 instant download after payment.

This volume encapsulates Punjab's development experience, considered to be one of the most successful experiments in rural development. This success story, however, appears to be going astray due to lack of sufficient intent and will to effect agrarian transition. Punjab's agrarian economy is characterised by stagnating productivity, reducing farm size, falling farm household incomes, depleting underground water resources, degradation of soil, environmental hazards, mismanagement of agricultural residues, poor economic and social infrastructure and civic amenities, Lack of non-farm employment opportunities, and absence of innovative approaches to tap potential contributions from the diaspora to rural development. The articles in this volume bring out clearly that rural development implies more than the transformation of traditional agriculture. Besides ensuring efficient use of limited natural resources to sustain agricultural production, rural policy should encompass promotion of non-farm activities and investment in social and economic infrastructure and civic amenities. However, the differential access of rural population adds to the complexity of rural development. The solution sought in decentralised, participative local development would be effective only "if formal institutions constructed for the purpose do not conflict with slow-changing, culturally embedded informal institutions. This book will be of interest to those in the fields of agriculture, rural development, development economics, public policy and agricultural economics.