Socio-economic Condition of Agricultural Labour in India

Abstract

Agriculture plays an important role in Indian economy not only because of its contribution to GDP but also for providing livelihood to a sizable population of the country. This paper was a modest attempt to study the different dimensions of agricultural labour in India like growth of agricultural labourer, its composition, land holding, wage earning pattern of agricultural labour, their indebtedness .Secondary data from different sources are used for analysis in the study. It is found from the study that the number and proportion of agricultural labour households to total rural household in India is increasing, they are mostly depending on wage labour, there is a predominance of the weaker social groups who are getting low wage, major percentage of agricultural labourers are landless and most of them depends on non-institutional sources for loan and uses the loan for consumption and social ceremony. Policy measures like strict implementation of the minimum and uniform wage, increase employment opportunity in rural area, attracting the agricultural labour towards institutional sources are suggested to improve the socio-economic conditions of agricultural labour in India.