Do you agree with the view that the technological changes in the agriculture have aggravated regional inequalities? Substantiate your answer.

The regional disparity among states in terms of development in India is on the rise. As per the recent study, it was noticed that few states are much ahead of a few other states in terms of the overall development. This is a very serious concern as the overall development of the country will face a slump if there is such a huge regional disparity in development. So, it needs to be addressed immediately. Let us discuss the reason for the disparity in the context of the technological changes in the agriculture sector.

Technological development in agriculture

• Land-Augmenting technological changes like multiple cropping, fertilizers, pesticides, high yielding variety seeds.
• Labour saving technical changes like more use of tractors, threshers, automated tools, technologically efficient instruments, etc.
• The accurate weather forecast, technological advancement in irrigation, app-based crop insurance schemes.
• Remote sensing techniques for Crop identification, precision Farming, m-Krishi launched by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

Regional inequality

• The main reason behind the regional inequality is the lack of awareness and the nationwide extension of all advanced technological service.
• Marginal farmers, especially in the northeast regions have failed to adopt the new technologies due to insufficient knowledge.
• Transport and irrigation facilities are not the same in every region of India.

Comment

For a developing country like India, growing through regional disparities is not a progressive result. From an agricultural point of view, more attention is needed for overall technological development. Further, India also has a very poor status in the Inclusive Development Index. The first and foremost way to improve its status is by removing regional disparities with positive efforts.