A NOTE ON AGRARIAN TRANSFORMATION 83 calculation a daily wage of about Rs. 22 would be necessary to provide a least-cost balanced diet to an agricultural labourers family. Even in Punjab and Haryana the wages were lower than this amount at that time. 3. The absolute number of workers in the agricultural sector (cultivators an4 agricultural labourers) increased despite a marginal fall in the proportion of people occupied in agriculture from 67.5 per cent in 1951 to 66.5 in 1981. 4. According to Dandekar the per capita net domestic product in the agriculture sector was Rs. 406 in 1951-63. It rose slightly to Rs. 416 in 1976-8? at 1970-71 prices. During the same period per capita net domestic product in the non-agricultural sector increased from Rs. 593 to Rs. 1217 at constant 1970-71 prices. Vide, 'Agriculture, Employment and Poverty', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXI, No.38,39, Sept. 20-27,1986, p. A 93. 5. A Vaidyanathan, 'Labour Use in Rural India, A Study of Spatial and Temporal Variations', Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXI, No.52, Dec.27, 1986, p.A 131. 6. Djurfeldt and Lindberg have observed 'The land owned by rich peasants does not represent any investment of money capital. It is inherited from their ancestors. Nothing forces the rich farmers to make their landownership profitable in the same way as the capitalist in the specifically capitalist mode of production'. Behind Poverty, The Social Formation in a Tamil Village, Oxford and IBH, Publishing Co., New Delhi, pp.173. 7. Reserve Bank of India, All India Debt and Investment Survey 1971-72. 8. Kripa Shankar, Capital Formation in Rural Uttar Pradesh, G.B. Pant Institute (mimeo) 1986. 9. The credit deposit ratio of rural banks in most of the states is less than 50 indicating thereby that rural savings are not being utilises in the rural areas. 10. It has been estimated that two-third of our agricultural land is degraded; 1200 million tonnes of fertile soil is removed every year due to soil and water erosion; the country is long 1.3 million hectares of forest cover every year; the fury of floods is increasing, rapid siltation has reduced the life of dams and reservoirs by one-third; 17 million hectares If land is lying as cultivable waste in a country of vast landlessness. KRIPA SHANKAR Senior Fellow (ICSSR), G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad.