[PEN-L:28717] Re: Re: Kerala

["Ulhas Joglekar" <joglekarulhas@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Pollak wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Ulhas  Joglekar wrote:
>
> > The share of agriculture in India's GDP has declined from 55% in 1950 to
> > 26% in 2000.
>
> Out of curiousity, Ulhas, what's its share in terms of percentage of
> population?

Urban population is 27% of the total population. The rest is rural.
Population directly involved in agriculture is about 66%. So one could say
that 66% of population produces and earns only 26% of the national income.
But that would be a very crude comparison. I don't have a precise estimate
of urban /rural share of GDP right now, but I will try to find it. You would
need to make adjustments for taxes, subsidies, differential interest rates
etc. e.g. There is no income tax on income from agriculture,
while the corporate tax rate is 35%.

Indian industry has considerable interest in development of rural incomes,
since exports are only 10% of the annual corporate sales. India has not
pursued the strategy of export lead growth. The growth involves widening and
deepening of internal market. (I don't mean by that import substitution.)
This includes agriculture. It would not be ppropriate to imagine that the
interests of industrial capital and agrarian interests are completely
antithetical.

The Home page of Indian Census Bureau at http://www.censusindia.net/ can
provide useful statistics.

Ulhas