Administering agricultural development C.2

About seventy per cent of the rural population is dependent on agriculture for their living. The agricultural industry in India has been proverbially called "A gamble on the Monsoon". The efforts to lessen the dependence on the vagaries of nature have had only partial success. Much more has yet to be accomplished to be able to develop confidence in the achievement in the agricultural field. This is not to deny or belittle the achievements in the field of agriculture in the last two decades. The production has. gone up from about 50 million tonnes to about 90 million tonnes in the good years. Nevertheless, this achievement has failed to provide a sustained confidence in being able to fulfil the needs of the country.

The There are many variables which affect the agricultural pro duction. As has already been indicated one is nature. other is the administrative organisation. There have been efforts to streamline the administrative structure. The improvement which has been attempted is in one sense a recognition of the inadequacy of the institutional set-up to meet the enlarging needs of introducing quick innovations in the field of agriculture. It also must be admitted that the attempt at improving the administra tive set-up has been based by and large on subjective evaluation of the functioning rather than on information collected through objective and systematic study.