MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE (SHRI MOHANBHAI KUNDARIA)
(a) & (b): Timely availability of reliable estimates of area production and yield of major agricultural crops is extremely important for macro level agricultural planning. However, dis-aggregated agricultural estimates are also required for agricultural planning at district and lower level of administrative hierarchy.
In the existing system, Government of India prepares all-India estimates of major agricultural crops on the basis of data received from State Agricultural Statistics Authorities (SASAs) in various States/UTs. The State Governments prepare their estimates on the basis of area enumeration in a sample of 20% villages and yield assessment through Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) conducted in a sub-sample of the villages selected for area enumeration. Field work of area enumeration and CCEs in the States/UTs are normally carried out by the staff of Department of Revenue/Agriculture.
An Expert Committee constituted under the Chairmanship of Prof. A. Vaidyanathan observed that due to multiple responsibilities assigned to the primary worker and heavy workload on account of increasing number of CCEs, the quality of primary data and, consequently, the State/National level estimates of area, production and yield of crops has deteriorated.
(c): Presently, the responsibility for furnishing crop-wise agricultural estimates in the States/UTs rests either with State Department of Agriculture/Revenue of Directorate of Economics & Statistics designated as SASA, and the work is assigned to dedicated statistical personnel. However, the quality of agricultural estimates highly depends on the reliability of primary data collected by field staff, irrespective of the fact that the overall responsibility of compilation and preparation of district/State level estimates lies with the State Governments or an Independent Agency.
(d) & (e): Yes, Madam. In order to assess the feasibility of implementation of recommendations of Vaidyanathan Committee, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) suggested to conduct a Pilot Study which has been assigned to Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute (IASRI), New Delhi.
