A Fluctuating The Expansion Of Rural Employment In India

Abstract

Since 1991, the Indian economy has witnessed a series of economic reforms, encompassing all major sectors of the economy (agriculture, industry, trade, foreign investment and technology, public sector, financial institutions, and so on); it has marked a steady break from the past policy regime. The import-substituting development strategy, hitherto nurtured by the Indian planning regime since 1951, was given up in favour of export linked strategy; India could no more keep aloof from the rest of the world, particularly if technological advances occurring elsewhere were to be assimilated and adapted to India’s own production requirements. And then came WTO on January 1, 1995 because of which India got further integrated into the global economic system, and became an adherent of the multilateral trade system. The experience of countries that succeeded in reducing poverty significantly indicates the importance of high rates of economic growth in achieving this. High growth, however, is not a sufficient condition for poverty reduction; the pattern and sources of growth as well as the manner in which its benefits are distributed are equally important from the point of view of achieving the goal of poverty reduction. And employment plays a key role in that context. Indeed, countries which attained high rates of employment growth alongside high rates of economic growth are also the ones who succeeded in reducing poverty significantly.  Every section of the Indian economy is now linked with the world outside, either through its direct involvement in international trade or through its indirect linkages with the export or import transactions of other sectors of the economy.