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| Leadership for Second Green Revolution | |
Leadership for Second Green Revolution
Only few visionary minds make a nation great
I am delighted to participate in the C. Subramaniam and Leadership lecture. My greetings to all the participants. I dedicate my lecture in memory of great visionary C. Subramaniam a great soul. |
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| My experience with CS Avargal | |
| Friends, during the 1990s, when our economy was growing at around 5 to 6% per annum in GDP we had to envisage a growth rate of at least 10% per annum consistently for over 10 years for realizing the development vision of billion democratic people of multi lingual, multi religious and multi cultural characteristics. This really ignited the minds of all of us in the council. The members of TIFAC Council at that time included: Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Nine Secretaries to the Govt of India, Chiefs of CII – ASSOCHAM and FICCI, Chairman of IDBI – ICICI - IFCI, Chairman of Public Sector of Corporations and Chief Executives of number of Private Sector Institutions, Vice Chancellors of different Universities and Scientists from DST. We debated and arrived at 17 task teams with over 500 members who had consultations with over 5000 people in various sectors of the economy. Committees worked for over two years resulting in 25 reports which we presented to the then Prime Minister of India on 2 Aug 1996. The reports included Vision on areas such as agro-food processing, advance sensors, civil aviation, electric power, waterways, road transportation, telecommunications, food and agriculture, engineering industries, healthcare, life science and biotechnology, materials and processing, electronic and communications, chemical process industry, services, strategic industry and driving forces - impedances. | |
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| At that time C. Subramaniam sir was out of politics and was staying in his home town Madras. I got a phone call from C. Subramaniam that he read a newspaper report that TIFAC has submitted 25 volumes of reports for national development. He asked me to send a set reports pertaining to food and agriculture. We immediate dispatched the document to his house. I had a call once again. He wanted to meet me with YS Rajan. I was the Chairman and Rajan was the Secretary of TIFAC at that time. When we both met him in his house, he thoroughly studied all the volumes of food and agriculture report and concurred with the need for second green revolution. He had a very important questions, particularly about water management and organic farming. CS Avargal took both of us to his house garden and showed us the drip irrigation, which he was using in the garden. He said, he is using one tenth of water for growing the vegetables, now compared to what he was using few years back. Also, he asked us to included in the data base, how excess water and chemical fertilizer damages good agriculture land in places like Haryana and Punjab. He also said, Bihar will become a great agricultural hub in the country with virgin land and hard working farmers if supported by good water management. He also said, that there is a need for Food Corporation of India to establish procurement and storage centres for food grains in Bihar. Whatever he told us on that day in 1996, holds good even today.
Let us dedicated second green revolution plan and action to the memory of C. Subramaniam.
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| Second Green Revolution | |
I would like to visualize a system how district administration can become a partner to a mission. Let us take second green revolution as a mission by the Agricultural Ministry as a model. Agricultural Ministry has a target of producing around 340 million tonnes of food grains by the year 2020 with reduced land, reduced availability of water and reduced human resource. Now let us identify the stakeholders. The stakeholders are farmers, agricultural scientists, meteorologists, agricultural planners, seed bank, water and irrigation system managers, organic and inorganic fertilizers manufacturers, chemical and bio-pesticides manufacturers, farm equipment lending agencies, co-operative banking system and financial institutions, warehouses and godowns, procurement agencies, distribution system and the coordinating ministries from the Central and State Governments. The success of the mission is totally dependent on the synchronized integrated action among all the stakeholders and also the integrated planning, funding, scheduling and proper execution. The second green revolution is indeed a knowledge graduation from characterization of soil to the matching of the seed with characterized soil, the composition of the fertilizer, water management and evolving pre-harvesting techniques for such conditions. The domain of a farmer's work would enlarge from grain production to food processing and marketing. While doing so, utmost care would have to be taken for various environmental and people related aspects leading to sustainable development. |
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| Based on the inputs given by Shri C. Subramaniam and the administrative and scientific community who participated in the First Green Revolution, I found that the first green revolution of the eighties was the product of intensive and extensive extension work done by everyone connected with agriculture under the leadership of the District collectors. That was the time when the Blocks were the unit of development and were functional. Dr. D. BENOR was the person who had laid the ground plan in coordination with ICAR for a national agricultural extension system. He defined extension as it relates to the process of carrying the technology of scientific agriculture to the farmer in order to enable him to utilize the knowledge to better his economy. Agricultural extension service seeks to impart the necessary skills to the farmers for undertaking improved agricultural operations, to make available to them timely information on improved practices in an easily understandable form suited to their level of literacy and awareness, and to create in them a favourable attitude for innovation and change". | |
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| The extension organization structure commenced with VLW -the village level worker who was the kingpin. At the block level was the agricultural extension officer, the BDO was the team leader at that level. At the district level, district agricultural officer provided the technical support. The collector was the leader. They collectively prepared an annual agricultural plan including plans for increasing irrigation potential, use of improved seeds and fertilizers. Plans were also drawn up for pesticides distribution. The village plan was executed at the village level by the VLW closely supervised by the agriculture staff. Inputs were arranged at the block level. Payments and supplies were made invariably through cooperatives. The collector's role and effectiveness were judged by his performance in all these areas as they were measurable in a quantitative manner. This system has somehow gradually collapsed after the stoppage of World Bank funding in 1989. | |
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| Now there is a need to bring back the extension structure from the village to the district, so that we can ensure minimum growth rate of 4% per annum in our agriculture. Simultaneously, we should also use the growth in IT for improving the communication to the farmers. Also, we can screen films which can give first hand feel to the farmers on the use of technology. We should aim at synchronous seamless action from Secretary (Agriculture) GOI to the village level extension worker. The collector should take the leadership role for the second green revolution. | |
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| Some agricultural experiences | |
| I was studying the agricultural practices of certain states where the growth has been consistently over 9% per annum, more than 3 times the national average. I had discussion with the experts about the methodologies through which such an impressive performance was achieved. A document, Frontiers of Agricultural Development in the state suggests that the reasons for increased productivity as:
1. Reforms in the rural electrification by setting up a dedicated grid for rural applications which ensure quality energy for the agricultural applications
2. Creation of large number of small farm ponds and connecting, de-silting and recharging the water bodies
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| Of course, with the increase in agricultural produce, stability of the price has been managed by opening export of agricultural produce. This experience in increasing the agricultural production is very important in the national context and the leaders have to spread the message among all the states. | |
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| The challenge in front of the state's agriculture is to continue this upward trend even in the years of unfavorable weather and market conditions. First green revolution was produced in the country through a combination of political vision, scientific leadership and farmers' initiatives and collaboration. Now we have to find, how the combined power of various specialists can double agricultural output in the state with less water, less land and less manpower using technology and improved processes. Ultimate aim must be how to increase the earning capacity of the farmers. Agriculture and value addition through food processing have to be seen as an integrated system. | |
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| National agriculture should follow an integrated plan of increasing the extent of the irrigation coverage by realizing the irrigation potential to the fullest. This should be simultaneously accompanied by infusion of better conservation technologies in irrigation which will help prevent the decline of the ground water, accounting for more than the 85% of the total irrigation sources. Similarly, the surface water conservation and harvesting needs to be encouraged at decentralized levels to help recharge the ground water. Also, the country has to utilize the 60 million hectares of waste land through appropriate crops which need less amount of water. This un-utilized land can be made economically productive by evolving and implementing a Jatropha mission for the country as has been done by Chattisgarh. This mission can even convert alkaline soil into good soil in a few years time. This Jatropha mission has a potential to generate at-least one to two million jobs for every million hectares use apart from providing clean energy to our rural areas, where the women will not use kerosene for cooking leading to better healthcare especially in the poorer and remote areas. | |
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| While looking into opportunities for better and higher yield varieties in our crops, we also need to study how can the confluence of our traditional crops and practices and the modern agricultural methods and inputs, be achieved to ensure benefits to the farmers, in terms of better yield with value addition, and also the end-consumer in terms of better nutritional value at reasonable prices. Dedicated research needs to be promoted for the development of traditional and local crops and practices which best suit the local agro-climatic and water conditions. The scientific capability of the Krishi Vigyan Kendras and Agro-research institutes and the wide network of cooperatives and agricultural farms can be very well utilized for achieving this purpose.
Let us now discuss about current ambience in India. | |
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| Current Ambience | |
Indian economy was growing at an average of 9% per annum till the last year. Now this year, Indian economy has got affected due to global economic turbulence, nevertheless it will grow at 6.5% in 2009 as expected by the Reserve Bank of India. I was asking myself, what type of innovation is needed to enrich the Indian economy and other world economies in the present circumstances. I had discussions, on this subject, with many experts. It came to light that the Indian economy will be less affected due to the world financial crisis. This is due to (i) The liberalization process in India has its checks and balances consistent with the unique social requirements of the country. (ii) The Indian banking system has always been conservative which has prevented the crisis (iii) The Indian psyche is generally savings oriented and living within means is part of the mind set. These three causes have reduced the effect of global turbulence in the Indian economy. However, there is reduction in export and reduction in outsourcing. The drop in annual growth rate of GDP is around 2.5%. In fact, as we approach 2010, the Indian economy is once again showing strong signals. CII recently has reported that the industrial production has risen considerably with increase in business confidence, along with the return of stabilized financial markets and capital inflows, all indicative of upside prospects. |
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| The industry grew 9.1% in September 2009. Sectors like automobile, cement and financial services are all posting significant recoveries since the second quarter of 2009. | |
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| This is the time innovation has to be encouraged in our thinking to rejuvenate in particular agricultural and rural sector through value addition, the small and medium scale industries and enterprises for making higher levels of contribution to the GDP. I foresee possibilities of creating new markets through rural potential and employment, giving rise to interesting possibilities of Public-Private-citizen partnerships and international partnerships. This sustainable development can be provided through PURA complexes (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) covering the entire country. | |
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| PURA is dynamic tool for sustainable development of the nation | |
During my visits to different parts of the country and during my discussions with many citizens, the results of such integrated efforts have started becoming visible. One major mission is the development of infrastructure for bringing rural prosperity are through PURA through creation of three connectivities namely physical, electronic, knowledge leading to economic connectivity. The number of PURA for the whole country is estimated to be 7000 covering 600,000 villages where 700 million people live. Government is planning to implement 2 PURA's per district across 600 districts in the nation. There are a number of operational PURA in the country initiated by educational, healthcare institutions, industry, Government and non-Government agencies. PURA has become an important development activity for bridging the gap in GDP growth arising out of the present economic conditions and it will also provide a special focus to second green revolution. This is a possible solution for economic revival and increasing the GDP growth rate. The revival in agriculture sector through PURA complexes will become the foundation for sustainable development of our rural areas leading to reverse migration from urban areas into prosperous rural villages. | |
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| Conclusion | |
| Dear friends, I have studied the leadership qualities of Subramaniam Sir in particular in addition to my association with many programmes which were executed in the country. I would like to convey to you, what I have learnt on leadership from Subramaniam Sir.
1. Leader must have a vision.
2. Leader must have a passion to transform the vision into action.
3. Leader must be able to travel into an unexplored path.
4. Leader must know how to manage a success and failure.
5. Leader must have courage to take decision.
6. Leader should have Nobility in management.
7. Every action of the leader should be transparent.
8. Leader must work with integrity and succeed with integrity.
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| For success in all the missions, it is essential to have creative leaders. Creative leadership means exercising the vision to change the traditional role from the commander to the coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect. For realizing the goals of Second Green Revolution, the important thrust will be on the generation of a number of creative leaders who will pioneer the missions and bring glory to the nation.
My greetings to all the participants of C Subramaniam and Leadership lecture. My best wishes to all of you for success in your mission of propagating the leadership traits of C. Subramaniam Avargal which can be emulated by the youth of our nation.
May God Bless you. | |
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