Development and the Rural-Urban Divide by John Harriss Mick Moore

Author:John Harriss, Mick Moore [John Harriss, Mick Moore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138896826
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

CONTEXT AND METHOD

The market town we studied in 1973 and in 1982-3 was Arni, in the eastern part of North Arcot District in Tamil Nadu [see papers in Farmer (ed.), 1977; and B. Harriss, 1976b]. Its population of 38,664 in 1971 had increased by about 27 per cent to 49,284 in 1981. The town has its origins in the bazaar which grew up around a fort constructed in the Vijayanagara period, and it is still a minor administrative centre and a marketing centre especially for paddy and for groundnuts, the two crops which dominate the cropping systems of the local region. It is also one of the smaller centres of the handloom silk industry of Tamil Nadu. The concept of a ‘typical’ market town is as misleading as that for the ‘typical village’. We would claim only that Arni shares many characteristics with other small towns in Tamil Nadu, and that if it is peculiar at all it is because of the existence of the silk industry – though it is quite common for small towns to have a particular industry as well as market functions.

In November and December of 1973 and 1982, and again in April 1983, we mapped and listed all the business and other activities of the built area of Arni (as opposed to the officially defined municipal area). We then drew, at each of the survey points, 6 per cent random samples of private and public sector production, trading and service units from our lists;3 and we ourselves (with language assistance) interviewed the owners (or sometimes the managers) of each of the units in the samples. The interviews covered data on the history of the firms and backgrounds of the owners; sources of capital; value, geographical sources and destinations of inputs and of outputs; business expansion and investment; credit; and employment. We are well known in the town and have lived there for quite long periods in connection with this and other research. So our data are probably as reliable as it is possible to obtain in surveys of small businesses. We have data from the samples and from supplementary interviews on 89 units in 1973 and 118 in 1982–83, as well as additional information on other activities in the town.

Arni is situated in the most important paddy-producing part of North Arcot. In the District as a whole the introduction of high-yielding varieties of paddy and associated ‘green revolution’ inputs has met with greater success than almost anywhere else in the state. Official data show that rice production in North Arcot has increased by 5.5 per cent per annum since the introduction of HYVs in 1967. This is the highest growth rate (with Chingleput District) in Tamil Nadu, and it has been almost entirely due to yield increases. It is estimated that rice production increased by more than 50 per cent in the District in the period from 1973–74 and 1982–83 [IFPRI, 1980:passim]. Comparison of the results of our two surveys allows us to comment on

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.