Impact of Economic Reforms on Rural Development in Andhra Pradesh: An Overview
Dr. Rama Rao Bonagani
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy Studies, #112, Kauveri Block,
School of Social Sciences, Central University of Kerala, Tejaswini Hills, Periye (PO), Kasaragod (DT),
Kerala (State), India Pin-671316.
ABSTRACT:
The year 1991 is an important landmark in the post-independent economic history of India. The country faced a severe economic crisis which triggered in part by a serious balance of payments situation. The crisis was convert into an opportunity to affect some fundamental changes in the content and approach to economic policy. Moreover, since 1991 onwards Indian economy has been exposed to economic liberalization and globalisation in line with Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) and stabilization policies initiated by Bretton wood institutions such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. It is clear that there has been a shift in Indian economic policy from state-oriented development strategy to market oriented development leaving the decisions of productions and distribution to the market signals. Moreover, the new reform measures seek to redefine the role India state and market so as to improve the productivity and efficiency of the system and there by accelerate growth and to enable India state to focus more intensively on certain socio-economic goals. Because of these, the present economic status of India is very good and very strong. However, What have the reforms achieved in respect of these goals after implementation of more than one decade. Mr. Montek S Ahluwalia has assessed economic performance of the states in Post reforms period in India. He has found that the difference in performance across states was enormous. Some states have done exceptionally well, several others show a strong performance, while some were doing very poorly. In this context, where is Andhra Pradesh (AP) stand on this matter. In fact, AP has earned for itself the reputation of being at the forefront of economic reforms implementation in the country on its own in mid 1990s. The question arises here is why AP government also taken initiative to start economic reforms and how these had impacted on the rural sector. This paper is divided into seven parts for analysis in order to investigate this. For this, this paper has used the date upto around 2006 only.
KEYWORDS: Reforms, Economic, Rural, Impact, Development
INTRODUCTION:
This article attempts to assess an impact of economic reforms on rural development in Andhra Pradesh (A.P). Prior to dealing with this, it is appropriate to see briefly why central Government of India has adopted economic reforms policy?.
The year 1991 is an important landmark in the post-independent economic history of India. The country faced a severe economic crisis which triggered in part by a serious balance of payments situation. The crisis were converted into an opportunity to affect some fundamental changes in the content and approach to economic policy1. Before explaining more details, look at brief evolution of development of economic reforms policy. Economic reforms come in waves and in sequence. In our India, the first wave of reform started with the launching of planning with an emphasis on industrialization, more particularly of heavy industries. The second wave, the precise dating of which may be difficult, began when it was found that the growth rate was weak, the trickle down effect was not adequate and when the need to focus directly on poverty alleviation became evident. The third wave which began in late Eighties gathered momentum after 19912.
Moreover, since 1991 onwards Indian economy has been exposed to economic liberalization and globalisation in line with Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) and stabilization policies initiated by Bretton wood institutions such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank3. The SAP and stabilization aspectst can rightly be called as LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalisation) policies4. It is also believed that IMF and World Bank institutions imposed certain policy conditions and urged the Government of India as measures of stabilization to cut drastically the fiscal deficit. The conditionalities included as follows5. Reduction in the government expenditure, cut in the expenditure of social sector, inviting the foreign investments etc.It is clear that there has been a shift in Indian economic policy from state oriented development strategy to sufficient market oriented development. The major goals of economic reforms at pin point such as6 a higher rate of growth, an enlargement of employment potential, reduction of population below the poverty line, promotion of equality etc.
Based on the studies, the reform process assessment has came in two opposite sides. On the positive side, India has achieved high status in information technology arena due to reforms, which facilitated marketing the technical skills of people efficiently. It also contributed to improvement in entrepreneurial capacity that has attracted joint ventures from overseas7. On the other hand there are some critics that the process has been slow especially growth rate and not sufficiently comprehensive. There is no doubt that some success in reducing fiscal deficit and some increased growth. The critic was that enough attention is not being paid to social sector development. There has been the growing disparities related to income among states in India. In fact, Mr. Montek S Ahluwalia has assessed economic performance of the states in Post reforms period in India. He found that although liberalisation has reduced the degree of control exercised by the centre in many areas leaving much greater scope for state level initiatives. This is particularly true as far as attracting investment both domestic and foreign is concerned. But he also found that the differences in performance across states were enormous. Some states have done exceptionally well, several others show a strong performance, while some were doing very poorly8. In this context, where is Andhra Pradesh stand on this matter?. In fact, AP has earned for itself the reputation of being at the forefront of economic reforms implementation in the country on its own in mid 1990s. The question arises here is why AP government also taken initiative to start economic reforms and how these had impacted on the rural sector. This article is divided into the seven parts for analysis.
I. Evolution of Economic Reforms Policy in Andhra Pradesh:
The year 1995-96 proved in many ways to be an watershed for the macro economic scene in AP. The State's own tax revenues as percentage of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) dropped by nearly 3 percentage points between 1990-91 and 1995-96 due largely to the fall in revenues from state excise following introduction of prohibition. The subsidy on rice, which is untargeted, amounted to thrice the level at which the population below the poverty line could be provided. These together with the low rates for water and electricity for irrigation, resulted in a huge revenue loss which was much beyond the capacity of a state like AP, whose per capita income was below the national average9.
As a result of severe financial crisis, the state government under the Chief Ministership of Chandra Babu Naidu responded to this by undertaking measures to rise tax and non tax revenues and by launching several reforms such as fiscal reforms, power reforms, governance reforms and institutional reforms10. These initiatives have earned a name for AP as being in the fore front of economic reforms in the country. Among above mentioned reforms, fiscal reforms are important. The fiscal reforms during 1995-200011 clearly reveals that majority of the reforms were pro rich and anti-poor. As a result of this reforms, studies proved that majority sectors especially social sectors which includes rural development, agricultural sector were slightly affected. Which undermining slightly high expectations within the country and abroad about its performance.
II. Pre-Reforms Period Perspective of Rural Development:
The developing countries are faced with the task of transforming a society with low levels of infrastructure, literacy, economic output, un employment and malnutrition12. After India got its independence, rural development has been one of the major plan objectives of the government. This is because most of the population lives in rural areas under conditions of deprivation and poverty, necessitating their upliftment in accordance with the national goals of economic planning. The term "Rural Development" according to Katar Singh, connotes overall development of rural areas with a view to improve the quality of life of rural people13. The main objective of this rural development is to improve the living standards or well-being of the rural masses by ensuring that they get gainful employment and access to the basic necessities of life. Some of the commonly known objectives of rural development are14 such as self-sufficiency in food production, creation of employment opportunities in rural areas etc.
However, the present state of AP consisted of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema was formed in 2014. Before this, state of AP was formed along with Telangana was in 1956 and it is mainly rural in character. According to 2001 census the proportion of rural population to the total population was 72.92 per cent15. The three major regions such as coastal Andhra, Rayala Seema and Telangana differ significantly with respect to resource endowments and inequalities are wide spread when assessed on a number of socio-economic parameters. Moreover, these are inter-regional disparities within a state. In order to develop rural sector, the government of AP had been implementing most of the central rural development schemes as sell as programmes. The government of AP has also adopted certain strategies before 1990s can be broadly classified as16 institutional reforms, development of social and economic infrastructure, development of resource-deficient areas, poverty alleviation, and organisation as well as empowerment of poor. Apart from these measures since 1980s, the Public Distribution System (PDS) had been effectively implemented in AP through the popularly known scheme, called as Rs.2/- a kg of rice and it was reached the remote and inaccessible areas.17 But based on studies reveals that in the pre-reform period also inter-regional disparities were there in terms of rural development. As a result poverty levels were low in the coastal Andhra and slightly higher in the Rayalaseema and Telangana regions.
III. Economic Reforms and Rural Infrastructure:
AP has taken major initiatives in the mid-1990s to introduce reforms in the management of infrastructure in areas like power, irrigation and information technology. This part intends to assess how these sectors reforms have performed for the rural sector.
a)Power:
In eighties, AP State Electricity Board (APSEB) has achieved a certain celebrity status as an only State Electricity Board (SEB) in India which has been maintaining steadily a profitable profile with a surplus after meeting its costs. This has been achieved under the same environmental conditions under which other SEBs function and which have made it difficult for them to avoid large losses over the years. What went wrong after this in AP?. The history of electricity sector periodised into three periods such as period of rise (1970-90), period of fall (1990-96) and period of reform (1996-2000)18. APSEB has kept on increasing the supply to agriculture by purchasing power at high cost from other sources. Moreover, due to several unavoidable factors the cost of electricity generation increased significantly from 1994-95. In response to these crisis the state government went for reforming SEB.
In 1998, Andhra Pradesh Electricity Reform Act was enacted, and Andhra Pradesh Electricity Reform rules were issued in 1999. Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) was set up.19 As a sequel APSEB was unbundled into Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation (APGENCO) & Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh Limited (APTRANSCO) on 01.02.99. APTRANSCO was further unbundled 01.04.2000 into "Transmission Corporation" and four "Distribution Companies" (DISCOMS) with effective from on 01.04.2000 (https://apgenco.gov.in, dated,20-9-2019). As a result of the reforms, power tariffs has been raised many times and subsidy for farming sector withdrawn. This was caused some farmers suicides in the state compared to other states in India. Infact, free power for farmers was the major agenda for congress in the 2004 assembly election, which later made became legislation immediately after Mr. Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy became chief minister in AP.
b)Irrigation:
Andhra Pradesh has been a leading participant in green revolution, especially for paddy. This has been greatly facilitated by availability of good irrigation infrastructure. If we see the across the regions, well irrigation had become the dominant source of irrigation replacing tank irrigation in Telangana and Rayalaseema. Though canal irrigation still dominates in the coastal Andhra region, well irrigation replaced tank irrigation in the second place20. However, existing systems have deteriorated over time and addition to capacity has been negligible due to the decline in public investment. Another problem was that inequitable distribution of water, lack of incentives for saving water, and low recovery of water rates.In order to improve irrigation, AP is the first state in India to initiate large-scale institutional reforms in irrigation management. In 1997, the state brought in legislation to create Water User Associations (WUAS) under the Andhra Pradesh Farmer managed irrigation systems Act. Under this act, 10,292 WUAs have been created so far. About 80 percent of these WUAs are in minor systems. An evolution of water user associations is mainly facilitated by AP economic restructuring project (irrigation component) funded rs. 4,994 crore by World Bank, NABARD and accelerated irrigation benefit programme (AIBP).21
The political economy of irrigation reforms reveals that most of the borrowed money goes for interest payments (debt servicing). In most years interest charges account for about 80 percent of the non-plan expenditure except in 1998-99. If this trend continues there is a danger of the irrigation department falling into a debt trap. Recoveries are on the decline despite increase (by three times) in irrigation charges in 1997. As a result irrigation reforms are dependent more on borrowed funds, especially for rehabilitation and maintenance. Impact of reforms on irrigation appears to different between canal WUAs and tank WUAs. The impact of canal WUAs has been positive especially in terms of providing irrigation tail-end farmers. There was a criticism that majority of the cases contractors have turned into WUA presidents. As a result, WUAs have become money making ventures.
c)Information Technology:
A number of efforts are being made by both governmental and non-governmental agencies in reaching IT to rural areas. For example, The National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) at Hyderabad has taken up a number of what are called "cyber extension" initiatives in India. It has established internet connectivity in 24 districts in seven states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Orissa and Punjab under National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP)22. Ten villages in Ranga Reddy district of AP were selected to test efficacy of experiments. These villages had successful Mutually Aided Co-Operative Thrift and Credit Societies (MACTCS). Multimedia CDs are distributed to these groups on several aspects of agriculture, rural development, health and education etc. Experiences of these groups have shown that they have been using internet for browsing websites for government programmes and schemes, weather forecasts, market prices etc regularly. It seems that they have also started charging nominal amounts for some of these services selectively23. The TDP government during reforms was also focused more on IT in urban AP.
IV. Economic Reforms and Agricultural Growth:
Agricultural growth is necessary not only for attaining high overall growth but also for eradication of rural poverty. Agricultural growth of AP in the post-reform period is the low compared to all-India growth rate24.
The growth rate of crop out put in the state decelerated from 3.4 in eighties to 2.3 percent in the nineties. The growth rate of rice output declined from 3.3 to 1.6 percent per annum. The growth rate of groundnut output decelerated from 5.2 to 1.9 percent. The growth rate of cotton declined from 8.1 to 7.4 percent. This decline was mainly caused by deceleration in the growth rates of yields of all important crops25. It is also important to know that as a result of this decline, the state has slid down in competitiveness in respect of several crops.What about public investment in agriculture? The data reveals that while the nation experienced trend decline in investment in agriculture till 1987-88 and increase in the subsequent period, AP showed the opposite trend of higher growth in 1980s than in the 1990s. Gross total investment in agriculture declined in the 1980s at 0.8 percent at the national level and increased at 6.0 percent per annum in AP in the 1980s. On the other hand, the nation experience revival of investment in the 1990s with a growth rate of 7.7 percent, but AP attained a very low growth rate of 1.5 percent per annum in the 1990s. Thus, the 1990s is a period of high growth of ground water irrigation and very low growth of total investment in agriculture26.
As a result of slow growth of public investment in agriculture, high cost of production and due to failure of crops, farmers had been suiciding since the late 1990s. Tough incidence of suicides has been significant in AP and Karnataka, they have been reported from many parts of the country27. Moreover, in ongoing process of economic re-structuring, agricultural sector and particularly the problems faced by the small farmers, in the poorer regions in the state were slightly neglected by the TDP government under Chandrababu Naidu28. Another criticism was that TDP's vision 2020 document envisaged reduction of people dependent on an agriculture from about 70 percent to about 40-45 percent in line with the shift in AP economy. Which claims, this strategy certainly create new jobs in allied sectors especially industry and service to agriculture. The question is whether the new jobs created in industry and services will be adequately enough for the shift of people from agriculture to non-agricultural avocations in such a large measure of 10-14 million, and reduce the people dependent on agriculture form 70 to 40-45 percent within a span of less than 25 years29.
V. Economic Reforms and Social Sector Development:
This part examined the trends in social sector expenditures in AP during reforms period. Social sectors can be defined as the total of expenditures on social services and Rural Development as given in central and state budgets. The head social services includes education, health and family welfare, water supply and sanitation. Expenditure under the head 'rural development' (which is listed under 'economic services' in the budget classification) relates mostly to anti-poverty programmes. The social sector expenditure as percentage of GSDP and as percentage of aggregate expenditure for the period 1980-81 to 2000-0130 revealed that AP spent around 6-11 percent of its GSDP on the social sector in the two decades. In 1980-81, the share in GSDP was 7.5 percent and increased to 11 percent in 1986-87. It started declining from late 1980s. The shares were lower in the 1990s as compared to 1980s. Similar trends can be seen for social services and rural development. We can also look at brief sketch of major health sector and primary education reforms and how they impacted the rural sector in the state.
A)Primary Health:
Health indicators such as life expectancy and infant mortality show that the performance of the state was lower than other southern states. Surveys on medical facilities in the state indicated the predominance of the private sector in health care and its rapid growth. The 42nd (1986-87) and 52nd (1995-96) rounds of National Sample Survey(NSS) provided the state wise estimates on the private and public sources of inpatient as well as outpatient treatment. The NSS data indicated that the private sector was predominant in AP even during the 1980s. It accounted for about 70% of inpatient care in rural areas and 62% in urban areas, which was the highest in the country. By the mid 1990s, its share further increased to 77.5 per cent in rural areas and a marginal increase in urban areas31. The main factors responsible for the rapid growth of private hospitals in the state were such as stagnation in expansion of public hospitals, the lack of government regulation on the maximum standards of medical facilities, pricing, staff etc has contributed to the rapid expansion of private sector in AP32.
Reforms in Public Health Sector:
With an avowed objective to improve the financial viability and quality of care in the government hospitals, the state government initiated the series of the following reforms, mainly at the secondary and primary levels. These are such as(1) Andhra Pradesh First Referral Health Systems Project (1995-2002)33.This project laid emphasis on slightly more role for market forces in the health care provision, which is suppose to be under the government to ensure health for all, (2) Primary Health Care Project (1998-2002 AD)34.This project aimed at some enhancing the space for the growth of private sector.
B)Primary Education:
Education is one of the most important social indicators that is directly linked with economic development. More over, education is recognized as a basic input for empowerment to individual and overall development of India. Despite its importance, education continues to be a some neglected area at the policy level. The deadline for achieving total literacy was postponed year after year. At the national level, expenditure on education in relation to GDP continued to be much below the desired 6 percent level. The share of elementary education in the total expenditure on education continued to be below 50 percent as against the required 65-70 percent to achieve universal literacy35.
Where is AP stand on above matter? It seems AP was doing not sufficiently as far as education was concerned. According to 2001 census AP ranked 22nd among 28 states in terms of adult literacy. More over literacy rate in AP has been much below compare to all India level during the last four decades. The gap between the two has narrowed down during the last decade. In rural AP, these were 731 households for every thousand households without a female literate and 465 households without any literate in the family. At all India rural level these figures are 633 and 331 households respectively. As a result, effective literacy rate was below than that of all India level36. With regard to rural-urban disparities, three-fourths of urban and more than half of the rural people had attained literacy by the year 2001 in AP. Rural-urban disparities in AP were higher when compared to all India though the gap was narrowing over the period37.
Reforms in Education:
The TDP government has designed schemes such as Mabadi (our school) Chaduvkundam (go to school) and Akshara sankranti to improve access to children, women and of disadvantaged communities in tiny habitations. The Vidya Volunteer scheme was started to appoint contract teachers to support single teacher schools38 etc. These initiatives and reforms seems did not appear to be fully effective in the state. Because AP is still behind all India literacy rate. Although AP was dong slightly better in school density, size and distribution of habitations, etc but declining public allocations for education in successive budgets during reforms period could undermine these gains. In fact, the RBI data showed that the ratio of public expenditure on education to GSDP in AP declined from 3.3 percent in 1985-86 to 2.1 percent in 1995-96. It then started increasing and reached 2.9 percent in 2000-01. But if we compared with other southern Indian states, the share of public expenditure on education in GSDP and budget was lower in AP39. This was some questionable to TDP government which provided and emphasized in vision 2020 to increase access to schooling by building more schools, employing more teachers etc.
VI. Economic Reforms and Rural Employment:
Employment in AP is largely unorganized, rural and non-industrial in nature. Expanding productive employment is central to sustained poverty reduction as labour is the main asset for the majority of the poor. The NSS data revealed that the work participation rates declined significantly in both rural and urban areas in the 1990s. While female work participation rates in rural AP were the highest in the country. Whereas in rural AP, around 25.1 percent of children in age group 10-14 were workers. while the corresponding figure for Kerala was only 0.7 percent.40 Infact incidence of child labour was the highest in the country.
The question is have economic reforms reduced employment growth in the state? The NSS data proved that employment growth declined drastically in the 1990s compared with the decade of 1983 to 1993-94. In rural AP, it declined from 2.40 percent per annum during 1983 to 1993-94 to 0.29 percent during 1993-94 to 1999-200041. Only around 6 percent of the total work force is in organized sector in AP. The growth of employment in organised sector has declined over time. In post-reform period, the growth of public sector employment declined drastically. while that of private sector employment increased. However, the growth of private sector employment has not been able to compensate for the loss of jobs in the public sector.
The share of non-form employment in rural areas has been stagnant since 1983. The diversification of employment has been slower in AP compared with all-India in the 1990s. Casualisation has been increasing over time. Rural AP has the second highest percentage of casual labourers in the country. Labour productivity showed high growth in agriculture and manufacturing in the 1990s. In spite of this, the growth of real wages in rural areas declined significantly in the 1990s42.
Finally, it is also important to see that the vision 2020 document says, "By 2020, every individual of AP will be able to lead a comfortable life, filled with opportunities to learn and develop skills". Around 18-20 million new jobs will have to be created by 2020. The document says that at present around 70 percent of the workforce dependent on agriculture. By 2020, only 35-40 percent of the workers are expected to be dependent on agriculture43. However, employment opportunities created have been inadequate during the reforms period in spite of rapid growth.
VII. Economic Reforms and Rural Poverty:
Poverty is concerned with the relationship between the minimum needs of people and their ability to satisfy these needs. There are two step process. First, monetary cost of a nutritionally sound minimum diet is determined. Second, the cost of the minimum diet multiplied by three to allow for expenditures on all other goods and services.44 At the heart of all discourses on poverty is the notion of a poverty line. A critical threshold of income, consumption or more generally access to goods and services below which individuals are declared to be poor. The poverty line, then represents a minimum level of acceptable economic participation in a given society at a given point in time.45 Moreover, people need adequate levels of food, clothing and shelter.
As far as rural poverty was concerned, official poverty ratios based on the Lakdawala committee methodology show very low levels of rural poverty (11 percent) and high levels of urban poverty (26.6 percent) for AP as compared with all-India (27 percent and 23.6 percent respectively) for 1999-2000. Moreover, the expert group (1993) and the planning commission (2001) have estimated incidence of poverty for the period from 1973-74 to 1999-2000. The poverty line for rural AP was found to be the lowest of all Indian states, where as the poverty line for urban AP was higher than urban India.46 However, alternative estimates by reputed scholars like Deaton and Dreze showed that the poverty ratios in AP were some closer to all India pattern, that is, 26 percent for rural areas and 12 percent for urban areas.47
Reforms in Poverty Alleviation Programmes:
Poverty alleviation programmes have been designed from time to time to enlarge income earning opportunities for the poor. Public intervention is required for this purpose to cover areas48 such as access to land and water for the poor, asset and skill development and access to institutional credit etc. There are more than 25 poverty alleviation and welfare schemes at present in the state to cover broadly these areas. The question arises here is what kind of reforms and strategies followed by the state government for the poor. In the 1950s and 60s measures like land reforms, credit reforms, introduction of panchayat raj and others were implemented to improve the income earning power of the poor. In the seventies, special programmes were launched to strengthen the income earning power of the small and marginal farmers, SC and STs. In the 1980s, endowment of assets to the poor for self-employment under IRDP, the special programmes for wage employment programmes for women like DWCRA were designed to empower the poor.49
In 1990s, the TDPs government strategy can be broadly classified under three categories:-
a. Self-Help Group Approach:
Important some social change taking place in AP related to women's empowerment (social and economic) through self help groups (SHGS). Another one is youth groups under the Chief Minister's empowerment of youth (CMEY) programme launched in December 1996.50 It is mainly women's self-help group approach has formed a central element in the TDP's governments social mobilization and community empowerment strategy for poverty reduction. Participation in SHCs has improved access of women to credit through government as well as group savings. This has helped women in reducing their dependence on money lenders. Interest rates in informal credit sector have declined. Moreover, access to credit has helped women to meet their consumption as well as production needs. The women have invested the credit obtained from SHGs in new economic activities. They have contributed to occupational diversification at the household level. The non-agricultural activities undertaken by the women helped the households to obtain income from low risk activities. Thus, the quality of income of the households has gone up. The quality of employment, indicated by shift from wage to self-employment of women is enhanced. All these indicate that incomes of the poor have increased and as a result intensity of poverty (poverty gap) among the poor has come down.51
b. People's Participation Approach:
The major institutional reforms and changes taken place during economic reforms period was government asked people should voluntarily contribute, as well as execute the various poverty alleviation programmes. Initiatives taken by the TDP government under this such as Janmabhoomi, Water shed Participatory Approach and Joint Forest Management.52
c. Welfare Schemes:
The TDP government had launched the several welfare measures for the purpose of eradicating poverty and improved the standard of living of the people in the state such as Adarana (Benevolence) programme was launched in 1998,53 Mundadugu (Forward Step) launched in 199854, Raithu Bazaar (Farmers market) was launched by the government in 199955, Deepam Scheme (LP Gas scheme) was launched in July 199956, Girl Child protection scheme was launched in 1996, Public Distribution System(PDS) was carried in 1990s with marginal increase of price and quantity reduction,57 and Roshni is the scheme for economic development and welfare of the minorities.58
CONCLUSION:
To conclude this article, it was observed that the purpose of pursuing economic reforms in AP state was to step up the GSDP growth rate and alleviating poverty. There has been a significant fiscal correction during the reforms period. Reforms were not fully successful in the power and irrigation sectors for expanding their capacity by improving efficiency and cost-recovery. Agriculture has been an area of strength of AP but has not received adequate priority in the 1990s. As a result, more farmers suicides witnessed in the state compare to all India level. Social sectors like health, education and rural development found to be undermined by insufficient public allocations in the post reform period. In the post reform period employment growth recorded a drastic decline in the state. There was a slight progress have been made in respect of participatory management of land, water and forest resources through the watershed development committees, water users associations and joint forest management. Women's self-help groups were a success story in the 1990s and have formed a central element in the strategy for poverty eradication through social mobilization, community empowerment and capacity building in this AP state.
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30. Ibid, no.10, pp.1150-1151.
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32. Ibid, pp.1234-1235.
33. Ibid, p.1238.
34. Ibid, p.1240.
35. Ratna Reddy V & Nageswara Rao R, "Primary Education: Progress and Constraints", Economic and Political Weekly, 2003, March 22-29, p.1242.
36. Ibid, p.1243.
37. Ibid, p.1244
38. Ibid, p.1250.
39. Ibid, no.9, p.1137.
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41. Ibid, p.1252.
42. Ibid, p.1261.
43. Ibid, p.1252.
44. Sharp M Ansel, Register A charles and Grimes W Paul , Economics of Social Issues, McGraw-Hill Publication, New York, 2002, p.144.
45. Ray Debraj, Development Economics, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1998, p.250.
46. Sudhakar Reddy S, Galab S and Padmanabha Rao P, "Trends and Determinants of Poverty :1973-74 to 1999-2000}, Economic and Political Weekly, 2003, March 22-29, p.1262.
47. Ibid, no.9, p.1131.
48. Ibid, no.3, p.171.
49. Ibid, no.45, p.1266.
50. Government of Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Empowerment of Youth Programme (booklet), Youth Service Department, Hyderabad, 1997-98, pp, 35-38.
51. Galabs and Chandrasekhara Rao N, "Women's Self-Help Groups, Poverty Alleviation and Empowerment", Economic and Political Weekly, 2003, March 22-29, p.1281.
52. Ibid, no.46, p.1269.
53. Government of Andhra Pradesh, Adarana Project Guidelines (booklet), AP Backward Classes Cooperative Finance Corporation Ltd. Hyderabad, p.1.
54. Government of Andhra Pradesh, Mundadugu (booklet), Information and Public Relations Department, p.7
55. Government of Andhra Pradesh, Raithu Bazaar (booklet), Information and Public Relations Department, Hyderabad, p.3.
56. Ibid, no.46, p.1269.
57. Ibid, no.46, p.1270.
58. Ibid, no.11, p.1168. &1, https://apgenco.gov.in, dated, 20-9-2019
Received on 20.08.2019 Modified on 21.09.2019
Accepted on 16.10.2019 ©AandV Publications All right reserved
Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2020; 11(3):175-182.
DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2020.00031.5