Why did we forget our backbone

Hello friends... Happy to meet you all here in my blog again.

After writing the previous blog (regarding social media, fuel prices and all), had too many discussion with friends and critics and that kindled me to write this blog.

There was a time when we knew Agriculture was India's backbone.  What's the current situation of agricultural sector in India?  With the population growing every second, have we improved our agricultural production and how close are we to being self-sufficient in this field.

For the FY 1950-51, Agriculture and allied sector contributed around 52% of India's GDP.  Since 1951, this saw a steady decline and for the FY 2016-17 Agriculture sector contributed only 15.11% of India's GDP.

Agriculture is the source of livelihood for about 70% of rural population and agriculture and allied services sector employs almost 49% of India's total workforce (data from Dept. of Agriculture, Co-operation & Statistics).  If this is true for FY 2016-17, we can imagine how poorly paid those workers are.

While Agriculture and allied sector contribution came down drastically, did we at least industrialize to call ourselves an Industrialized nation?  NO.... Industries contributed around 14% of India's GDP in 1950-51 and grew up to only 24% in FY 2016-17... So, Industrial sector also didn't see a major growth.

India's GDP growth is estimated at 11.52 per cent for FY 2016-17... With consistent GDP growth of about 5% (average since 1950), where did all these contribution come from?

Did it come from our core competency of agriculture?  No, it came from services sector.  During FY 1950-51 services sector contributed about 32% of India's GDP.  For FY 2016-17, services sector contributed about 58% of India's GDP.

It's a whopping growth of services sector... What does services sector include??   Services sector include the following sections of trade:

• Trading, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting
• Financial, real estate and Professional Services
• Public Administration, Defense and other services

For more detailed listing of sectors and other economic indicators refer this web site: http://statisticstimes.com/economy/sectorwise-gdp-contribution-of-india.php

Why did we deviate from our core strength of agriculture and started urbanizing by demolishing agricultural land?  A whopping 15.98% of India's GDP comes from Real Estate, Ownership of dwelling and other professional services...

This growth in real estate sector during this period is due to urbanizing of much required and needed cultivable land.  By urbanizing we just didn't have enough agricultural production but also lost much needed water source.  India's agriculture always depended on rainfall and after Independence, India started with negative growth rate in agriculture and again production dropped during FY 2002-03 due to severe drought.

In the 1960's and 70's India's agriculture got a good boost and recorded impressive growth rate due to "Green Revolution".  Contrary to many people's belief, Green Revolution was only a short-term fix and the negative implications of Green Revolution was far greater than the growth rate in agricultural sector achieved in 60's and 70's

The negative impacts of Green Revolution can be summarized as:

1. Disparity in consumption of fertilizers where the district-wise fertilizer consumption in the country varies from 50-200 kg/ha.  By increased usage of chemical fertilizer to achieve desired production, we started doing irreparable damage to soil.
2. Excessive use of chemical fertilizer (150-200 kg/ha) as reported from some states like Punjab and Haryana causing destruction of useful microorganisms, insects and worms in soil.
3. Imbalance in nutrient status causing significant deficiency of N, P, K, Zn, S, Mo and B and disturbance of soil texture and it's physio-chemical properties.
4. Environmental degradation like depletion of stratospheric ozone, nitrate toxication, etc. causing health hazards  like cancer, methamo-globinemia, respiratory illness, hypertension, etc.
5. Pollution with heavy metals and pesticide chemicals causing serious damage to food quality from the safety point of view.

Far too many environmentalists and health institutions have been warning us about too much dependency on chemical fertilizers and it's impact on health and quality of food... People like Late Mr. Nammalvar (organic farming expert, who wanted us to use only time-tested natural ways of agriculture) have dedicated themselves to change the agricultural habits from the Green Revolution era.  But unfortunately, with depletion of cultivable land and non-availability of water, it's making it very difficult for this sector to grow.

Urbanization, chemical fertilizers and other such factors have contributed in significant reduction of ground water levels, which has affected the agricultural industry and not to mention the normal living conditions in urban areas as well.

Just to give you an idea of India's population during this period, for FY 1950-51 India's population was 376 Million.  For FY 2016-17 population was estimated at 1.35 Billion.  This is a staggering 259% growth in population during this period but our agricultural resources are depleting fast and our production in this sector was moving at snail's pace.

Now, imagine with reducing agricultural production and ever increasing population, what's the effect it's having in our economy?

This urbanization has not just reduced India's agricultural productivity.  It's having much bigger impact which many of us have started to feel now.... One big problem in many cities in India now is the availability of water (both potable and non-potable for general use).  Ground water levels have gone alarmingly low.

One great impact of urbanization Chennaites can see is OMR.  In late 80's and early 90's I used to travel through OMR quite often.  It would be very scary scene in the night with single track road and open vacant land on both sides and probably see some huts in distance and very few shops even if you have to stop and ask for directions.

What's the scenario today?  4 to 6 lane roads with bumper-to-bumper traffic, high rise office buildings with very little to no greenery.  The once fertile OMR has severe water scarcity now.  Most of the office buildings in that area are buying water on a daily basis (not just for drinking but also for other uses).

During the floods in 2015, OMR was badly affected thanks to the urbanization... No proper drainage and open land to absorb water caused this and many people were stranded... This is the condition in many parts of the city.

Late 1980's saw first of the many apartment blocks coming up in Chennai.  This development of apartments meant ground water levels started receding very fast.  In a plot (let's say about 2 grounds) were one or two family was living was converted into multi-storey apartment building, which housed about 10 or 15 families at least... This meant, more water requirement for the same size of land and this sort of apartment style housing developed too fast.

We have a tendency to blame the Government for almost everything.  Who's responsible for such a huge urbanization?  Why did we forget that the basic strength of our country was agriculture and have started selling the cultivable land for real estate development?

Many parts of the cities do not have sufficient ground water.  Isn't this mainly due to over development of real estate?

One of the major fault of the Government was to encourage IT sector (for BPM and other related services to foreign companies).  This has resulted in massive real estate development.  The previous ruling party came out with this encouragement and even allowed tax concessions for such companies.  What did this bring to us?

The once peaceful and beautiful Bengaluru is now a concrete jungle with horrible traffic jams.  The once green and open fields of OMR is now a nightmare to live and drive-by.  Many major and small cities across India has seen a boom in real estate due to this IT/BPM development.  The development looks good to the eyes, but has become a nightmare to live with traffic jams, non-availability of water, pollution, etc.

Even after this frantic developments to support IT/BPM sector, it's contribution to India's GDP is only 7.70% in the FY 2016-17.  But at what cost did we get this contribution?  By drastically reducing our production in agriculture and depleting ground water and other resources.  Also, these rapid developments meant more requirement for automobile and fuel, which resulted in massive import of fuel and thus weakening our currency.

As a country we shouldn't have bothered to promote the IT/BPM sector to this level... It has created an adverse effect in many fronts including revenue loss to Government due to tax holiday given to this industry.

We need to concentrate on our core competency and develop it.  With such a huge coastline, Fishing and Aquaculture sector contributes only 1.06% of India's GDP.  Forestry & Logging contributes only 1.58% of GDP.  Both these sector comes under Agriculture while calculating GDP.  With the coastline we have we can develop the fishing and related sector to improve our GDP contribution and provide employment and seafood without having to depend on external sources. Preserving, developing and curbing unlawful deforestation can develop our forests and can also contribute in a better way to GDP.

There's a common belief in the world that the Third World War may happen for water.  If this is to happen, what a tragic situation we have put this planet into? 

We, Indians, take pride that we are one of the oldest civilizations and have learned to cultivate, hunt and even build universities much before most of the world...  Our ancestors have shown the way on how to live self-sustained and live as a community and more importantly, to live with the nature without disturbing it.

What have we done to keep up with that?  We have started modernizing everything and now we can proudly say that we contribute about 16% of India's GDP in real estate sector.  From being the pioneer in teaching the world on civilization, education, cultivation, etc.  have we become mere real estate brokers?

As I was finalizing this blog, I happened to read a  recent study by Global Burden of Disease.  GBD has reported that 32% of world's respiratory related diseases are reported in India...  Is this the development we need by depleting natural resources?  This massive urbanization has resulted in such a big pollution and the resulting sufferings for us.

The frightening facts of how fast we deplete natural resources can bring a fear about our future generation.  If we can spread that fear in a more useful manner for the human race to take care of this planet's natural resources, that will be the biggest contribution we can do than anything else.

My scary thoughts have made me read more and more about the civilized problems we are creating and I may end up writing more blogs on this topic (this is my official warning of things to come!!) 😆