Sunday, 13 Oct, 2024
The ability of super star Amir Khan to attract people to theatres has come under a cloud after two successive massive flops by the names of Thugs Of Hindoostan & Lal Singh Chadha. But the star has delivered many conic hits in his career, one of them being Lagan, where Indians metaphorically take on the brutal and extortionate might of the British Empire.
The ability of super star Amir Khan to attract people to theatres has come under a cloud after two successive massive flops by the names of Thugs Of Hindoostan & Lal Singh Chadha. But the star has delivered many conic hits in his career, one of them being Lagan, where Indians metaphorically take on the brutal and extortionate might of the British Empire. One famous song in the movie invokes the rain gods to have mercy. In real life, farmers in India have been invoking the rain gods this year as there are clear signs that food grains output will decline after six successive years of record harvests. The newspaper Hindustan Times, featured an exclusive story by Zia Haq that revealed how the erratic monsoons have played havoc with sowing of Kharif crops. According to the news report, while there has been excess rainfall in southern states, major rice producing states have seen severely deficient rainfall. This includes Uttar Pradesh (43% deficiency), West Bengal (22%) and Bihar (37%). On the other hand excessive rainfall in states like Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka has led to a damage of freshly sown crops. There can be no doubt any more that this will result in a lower than expected Kharif harvest. Even if the Rabi harvest is robust, agricultural economists seem convinced that the total food grains production in 2022-23 will be lower than the record 316 million tons achieved in the previous year.
As the accompanying chart reveals, even erratic rains during some years have not prevented food grains output from breaking records year after year. For instance, the output was 275.7 million tons in 2016-17. It has kept rising every year and touched 316 million tons in 2021-22. This sustained growth in food grains output has played two critical roles. First, it has covered up to some extent for a weak manufacturing and industrial growth that led to GDP growth rate crashing to just 4% in 2019-20, the first year of the second term of the Narendra Modi regime. Second, it has led to a massive rise in buffer stocks that enabled the government to distribute 5 kg of free food grain every month to 800 million Indians since April, 2020. That one policy gesture has, according to almost all analysts, prevented starvation amongst Indians whose livelihoods were brutally disrupted in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
What would the consequences of a decline in food grains out this year be? Mercifully, the buffer stocks are still way above prescribed norms and the government will face no crisis if t continues the free food grans scheme as expected till March next year. But there will be a definite impact on GDP growth rates and t could be revised downwards from the current forecasts of 7.2% to 7.4%. There could also be a decline in export revenue as India may not have enough surplus rice to export. In 2021-22, India had exported 21 million tons of rice.
