Agriculture is considered as the backbone of Indian economy. Why? Pls I need a long answer.
Answers
It is because of the following reasons:
1. More than half of the population in India depends upon agriculture as a source of daily income.
2. Since the geographical factors of India are perfect for the cultivation of crops, it is done at a large scale.
3. It is therefore the backbone of Indian economy.
Agriculture is called the backbone of India because:
1. Around 50% of India's households are into the occupation of agriculture. A depressed monsoon or crop failure due to pest attack, affects the purchasing power and private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) of this big segment, eventually causing economy wide recession.
2. Bad harvest (due to any reason) has a large bearing on price level (as Food constitutes the largest item in the basket of a typical Indian consumer - viz., CPI).
3. Expansion of secondary & tertiary sectors has not kept up with the pace of population growth, thereby not being able to facilitate mobilization of agro workers to sectors of higher value addition.
4. Urbanization has not been adequate. We need more new cities. The skyrocketing population density in existing cities has caused increase in cost of living, while diminishing the scope of gainful employment for poor migrants.
5. Maintaining this vote bank is in the interest of all political groups as they can be thrusted with populist measures just before elections. Voter turnout is seen to have been higher in the case of poor, rural, backward groups - who are more affected by governmental policies.