Performance of Agricultural Input Subsidies in Vidarbha

Indian economy is predominantly an agrarian economy and its prosperity depends upon the progress of agriculture. So agriculture sector is considered as the backbone of our national economy. Various incentives have been provided for accelerating the growth of agricultural production. Among them, subsidies are considered to be the most powerful ones. Provision of agricultural subsidies is made not only in developing countries like India, but in developed countries of the West also. The social justification of the subsidies lies in the fact that they should be equally distributed among the regions and groups of society for achieving the goal of rapid growth in agricultural development. During the last two decades, agricultural subsidies in India have increased tremendously. But there has been large inter-regional disparity in the use of agricultural subsidies, which has rather increased over the time. Provision of input subsidies in agriculture has been recommended on the ground that it gives incentives to the farmers to use new technology and increases agricultural production. The book covers the performance analysis of agricultural input subsidies in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.