Punjab was India’s pioneering state in agriculture. The state symbolised the country’s green revolution success in the mid-1960s with high yielding varieties of wheat and later rice raising productivity levels. This success helped the nation to free itself from the PL-480 food aid. The state’s agricultural growth surged at an unprecedented 5.7 per cent from 1971-72 to 1985-86, double the rate of the all-India average agricultural growth rate of 2.31 per cent during the same period. Punjab’s dizzying success in agriculture was mainly due to four factors: first massive public investment in irrigation, second the introduction of high yielding variety seeds, third increased rural connectivity by constructing all-weather roads, and fourth the linking of agri- markets with the farmers.
Unfortunately, religious extremism in the mid-1980s created havoc in Punjab. The surge in grain production in the state dramatically declined to touch the country’s average of 3 per cent from 1986-87 to 2004-05. In the following period, the downturn in...
