Prof Abhijit Sen: A lifelong champion of the poor and marginalised

Coined the term 'technology fatigue' in relation to agriculture

Prof Abhijit Sen was a brilliant economist who worked mostly on the rural and agrarian economy. He served in several top-level policymaking bodies of the country.

He was chairman of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) and full-time member (agriculture) of the Planning Commission for a full 10 years.

Sen was also a member of the 14th Finance Commission. Besides these, he headed several high-level and important committees like the high level committee on long-term policy on foodgrains, committee on futures trading etc. He prepared estimates of farmers’ income using cost of cultivation data and published his works in the form of a book with MS Bhatia.

I had the opportunity of working with Professor Sen closely for over 10 years in working groups and steering committees of the 11th (2007-2012) and 12th (2012-2017) five-year plans.

Prof Sen is also fondly remembered by states for preparing the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), which, perhaps for the first time, gave flexibility to states to spend money granted under the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS).

I would like to mention an interesting episode here.

When I was preparing a report for the 12th five-year plan, I had worked on a slide that showed that agricultural growth in India accelerated when Terms of Trade (ToT) for agriculture increased and decelerated when ToT declined.

This meant that prices were driving growth in agriculture and had a direct correlation with prosperity in the sector.

Prof Sen in his inimitable way quipped, “Your inference is very dangerous, but I can’t refute it”. Prof Sen was a strong votary of public intervention in food policy and price support systems.

Another incident that I fondly remember is the coining of the term ‘technology fatigue’ in agriculture by Prof Sen.

He asked me to prepare an ‘Index of Technology’ in agriculture to analyse its relationship with agriculture growth.

What we found was that between 1997 and 2004, when agricultural growth slowed, the ‘Index of Technology’ represented by yield potential remained flat.

Based on this study, Prof Sen came out with the term, ‘technology fatigue’. The findings of this study were then shared with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

I found him to be always suspicious of the role of the private sector in serving the goals that are served by the public sector.

Sen was also a strong supporter of the Public Distribution System (PDS) and many other policies that targeted the rural poor, agricultural labourers, and small and marginal farmers.

Prof Sen was also a great defender of the rights of states and strongly believed in federalism. This is also evident from his dissenting note that in the report to the 14th Finance Commission. He wanted more devolution to the states.

Prof Sen also promoted several young scholars working in the fields of agrarian economy as president of Indian Society of Agriculture Economists.

He impressed one and all with his simplicity and down to earth approach to several complex issues.

He understood agriculture economics perhaps like no one else and remained a lifelong champion of the poor, landless, small and marginal farmers and also marginalised areas and communities.

The author is member NITI Aayog (As told to Sanjeeb Mukherjee)