All About INDIA

India is an emerging global economy. It ranks eleventh in the world in terms of the nominal GDP and stands on third position worldwide by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Major sectors of Indian Economy which have contributed to bring India to this stand are listed and described below:

Agricultural Sector, employing 52.1% of the total Indian workforce, is the highest employment provider in India. However, despite this fact, the overall contribution of the agricultural and allied sectors including fishing, forestry and logging to the overall GDP of India is less than twenty percent. In financial year 2009-2010, agriculture sectorcontributed only 15.7% to the country’s GDP. However, even though its contribution to the overall GDP being not very significant, agriculture remains an important & prudent sector in India and has had an immense contribution in uplifting the economy of the nation.

India stands on second position in the world in terms of farm output. However, a few recent surveys and findings conducted on an international level revealed that the average yield in India is only 30% to 50% of the highest average yield in the world. During pre-independent era, excessive stress was laid by the British on the commercialization of the Indian agriculture and encouragement of cash crops. The consequences of this were devastating for the fertile Indian lands and led to frequent famines, droughts, floods and in the decrease in fertility of the Indian soils. When India gained its independence in 1947, it was a challenge for the Indian Government to revitalize the agriculture in country and to address this challenge, agricultural sector was taken on top priority during initial Five Year Plans framed by the Planning Commission of India. This gradually lead to the improvement of agricultural infrastructure, provision of agricultural credits and subsidies to the farmers, adaptation of neweragriculture techniques and many other positive developments to revitalize the Indian agriculture. All these steps finally contributed to the green revolution in India and evolved India as one of the major producers of agriculturalproducts in the world. States of India providing highest contribution to country’s total annual agricultural produce includes Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal.

Major agricultural produce of India includes wheat, rice, sugarcane, groundnuts, pulses, fruits, vegetables, silk, jute, cotton and milk. Also, India stands on first position in the world in terms of the production of pusles, jute & milk and is also the second largest producer of wheat, rice, sugarcane, groundnuts, cotton, fruits and vegetables.

Industrial sector is the second highest employment provider in India, next only to the agricultural sector, and provides employment to almost 23% of the country’s total work-force. Also, the GDP contribution of the industrial sector stands on the second position, next only to the Service Sector, contributing almost 28% to the total GDP of the nation.

The Industrial Sector in India has grown at a tremendous rate in the past two decades. This growth rate has been triggered by the economic reforms of 1991, which were adopted under the leadership of Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, and Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, in order to avail a US$ 1.8 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Under these reforms, many import restrictions were removed, FDI regime was liberalized and many public sector industries were privatized.

Though, on the whole, the economic reforms of 1991 have been a success for the Industrial Sector of India, but these reforms were accompanied with some negative impacts as well. After these reforms, with the entry of foreign players into the Indian markets, the competition became very stiff. This led most local industry to adopt newer and more sophisticated technology in order to cut down there cost of production. Though, adaptation of newer technology was a prudent decision but it lead to squeezing of the labor force which intensified the already prevalent problem of unemployment in country.

In current scenario, the Textile Manufacturing Industry is the highest employment provider in the entire Industrial Segment of the Indian Economy. In fact, Textile Manufacturing Industry alone is the second highest employment provider in India, next only to agriculture. Also, it accounts for 20% of the total manufacturing output of the country. Most improvements in this segment of manufacturing industry have been attained after 2005, when government lifted several limitations which were put on the textile industry.

Service Sector, contributing almost 55% to the country’s GDP, is the highest contributor to the economy of India. Also, at the same time, Service Sector contributes such a significant proportion to the GDP of India with the engagement of minimum work-force of the country. This sector employs only 14% of the country’s total work-force. However, the engagement of work-force in this sector is on a steady growth. The rate of increase in work-force engaged in service sector rose from 4.5% in 1951-80 to 7.5% in 1991-2000.

Under Service Sector, Information Technology & BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) are the two fastest growing segments which alone account for almost one-fourth of India’s total export. Today, India ranks 13^th in terms of the services output according to latest international statistics. However, this sector not always had its dominance over the Indian Economy. Prior to the economic reforms of 1991, service sector grew in India at a decent rate and had an average contribution to the country’s GDP. However, post the economic reforms of 1991, which were adopted by the Government of India under the leadership of Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, and Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, the service sector of country has shown a tremendous growth and gradually began to dominate the Indian Economy. Some factors which have contributed to the tremendous growth of this sector post liberalization includes the availability of a vast pool low cost, educated, highly specialized & skilled, English speaking manpower which meet the demand of most foreign consumers.