Since the inception of liberalized economic policy the entire socio-economic scenario of
India has been changing very fast. While India’s GDP grew at an annual rate of about 6 per cent
over the few last decades, agricultural growth declined to a mere around 2 per cent over the same
period. Obviously, agricultural share in GDP has declined to 18 per cent whereas the share of
service sector (mainly due to spectacular growth in IT sector) has increased to more than 53
percent. The share of industrial sector also outpaced agricultural sector. However, despite
declining share of agriculture in the economy, about 46 per cent of India’s geographical area is
used for agricultural activities and about 58 per cent of country’s workforce is employed, directly
or in-directly, in agricultural and allied activities (CSO, 2007).