Agricultural Growth and Regional Disparity in India: A Convergence Analysis

The deceleration in growth trends in agricultural output and yield rate is a matter of great concern in recent years in India. This study makes an attempt to examine the growth performances of agricultural production and productivity of major States of India and the nature and extent of disparity in the performances of agriculture. The growth performances have been analyzed considering three distinct phases of agricultural development in India viz the first phase of green revolution 1970-71 to 1979-80, second phase of green revolution 1980-81 to 1990-91, and the period after economic reform 1991-92 to 2007-08). The agricultural infrastructural index, constructed using Principle Component Analysis, reveals the prevalence of a wide inter-state variation in agricultural infrastructure in India. Moreover, using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) under the panel data framework, the study attempts to examine the trends of convergence/divergence of per capita value of agricultural output over the period 1970-71 to 2007-08. The results of conditional convergence establish the argument that variations in the provision of agricultural infrastructure and natural factor like rainfall play the divergent role in accruing benefits from agriculture in India. The skewed distribution of public and private investment in favour of agriculturally developed states has been found to be responsible for enhancing the disparity in agricultural infrastructure and thus, to the per capita net state domestic product across states in India