日本財団 図書館


Nonetheless, the budget deficit, becoming full scale, forced the Government to cut development expenditures, and private and public capital formations started to diverge in the agricultural sector from the latter half 1980s onwards11. The central government sees problems in the reduction of public investment for agricultural fixed capital formation, but it regards them as "under the control of the states"12. State governments' financial statuses are, however, even worse than that of central government, and many projects for canal construction are stumbling at the planning stage.

The private sector's fixed capital formation is concentrated on such capital goods as tube-wells and tractors, typically with little external economy. On the other hand, public capital formation is decreasing, which is supposed to be effective for the establishment of agricultural infrastructure able to exert external impact, such as canal irrigation etc. This tendency may endanger India's long-term food security, even if we ignore its low farmland irrigation rate, which is only slightly above 30%.

 

5. Food Problem - No Longer a Political Issue?

 

The Indian government is, in general, quite optimistic about the country's self-sufficiency in food-supply. This optimism is backed by the buffer inventory level, which was marked a record high thanks to recent good monsoons. Of course, the possibility of resuming import of foodgrains cannot be excluded because of the irregular advents of monsoons that are experienced at times. But India's self-sufficiency in food-supply can be presumed to be sufficient on the short-and mid-term basis. The issue is the long-term supply.

Among the forecasts of India's future demand for food, those for foodgrains for 2010 vary in the range between the 1.91 to 2.05 million tons, the forecast by the World Bank to the 2.43 to 2.59 million tons, forecast by G. S. Bhalla13.

 

 

 

BACK   CONTENTS   NEXT

 






日本財団図書館は、日本財団が運営しています。

  • 日本財団 THE NIPPON FOUNDATION