Abstract
Rajasthan’s economy continues to be predominantly agrarian. About 75 percent population in Rajasthan lives in rural areas, which depends directly or indirectly on the agricultural sector. Similarly, the share of the state’s rural labor force employed in agriculture (main workers) was found very high in Rajasthan. Thus, it is evident that the rural labor force depends mostly on agriculture and is unlikely to reduce drastically shortly. In addition to this, the direct impact of agricultural growth on the generation of rural employment and incomes, and its significant secondary linkages with the development of rural non-farm sectors are more crucial. The economy of Rajasthan is mostly dependent on agriculture and 20 percent of the state’s GDP comes from agriculture. Recognized as the largest state of India, Rajasthan has a cultivated area of almost 20 million hectares but due to some unavoidable circumstances, 20% of the total cultivated area is irrigated. In recent years significant change in cropping patterns in Rajasthan has been observed. In Rajasthan is clear shift from food crops to non-food crops is seen and thus a paper study of the relation between irrigated areas and food & non-food crops is proposed. In pursuance of the main objective to study the various aspects of agricultural development of Rajasthan, a perusal and systematic analysis of the prevailing agricultural economy of Rajasthan become imperative. In this paper, a careful assessment of the performance of the agricultural sector of the state will be carried out, and also in this paper basic features of the agricultural economy of Rajasthan will be highlighted. For this purpose, simple statistical techniques are extensively used such as percentages, averages, index numbers, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and coefficient of variation.
Keywords: Agrarian economy, cropping pattern, irrigated area, GDP, NSDP, CAGR.
References
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