3. Self-Employment and Rural Industrialisation
THE ALL-INDIA MANUFACTURERS' ORGANISATION has taken the initiative to arrange this seminar on self-employment and rural industrialisation. The subject chosen for the seminar covers perhaps the most important aspect of national endeavour. While the rate of economic growth in the country has recovered from the slump of the middle 1960's, there is a lacuna in this recovery which causes considerable concern. The rate of over-all growth registered in recent years is still unable to provide adequate work to the entirety of the large number of engineers and technicians — and to other skilled young men and women — coming out of our schools and colleges. Even in agriculture, despite the remarkable progress achieved over the past few years, the pressure on land continues. While the population, including the rural population, continues to grow, the area sown under different crops expand only marginally even if there are more of irrigation and reclamation possibilities. The pressure on land thus keeps going up. Moreover, there is a certain regional pattern in which this pressure manifests itself.
In those parts of the country where the annual rate of agricultural growth is around 8 to 10 per cent or more, the pressure on land can be, to some extent, absorbed in the sense that there is a higher level of income and earnings to be shared out amongst larger number of people. In other parts of the country, say the eastern region or parts of the south, where the rate of agricultural progress has been around 2 per cent or less per annum, the problem assumes a more acute form.
We know from past examples that when the land-man ratio turns unfavourable, there is a tendency for masses to migrate to the urban areas. So long as agriculture, on its own, is unable to provide satisfactory outlets for employment to the masses in the countryside, there will be this push factor. If facilities for receiving this ever-widening flow lag behind, social tension becomes inevitable, as we have seen in several cases in recent years.