SOCIAL SCIENTIST pattern of growth and dispersion of this crop on a historically longer period. A dichotomy in the production-consumption ratios of rice that has become visible, if not from the beginning of the HYV period, at least from the early 1970s is brought out in Section III. Section IV puts together some statistical evidence to show how this had happened. Under the given food policy of the government, the dichotomy in the regional pattern of production and consumption of a major foodgrain like rice would necessarily have different fiscal implications for different states. This is discussed in Section V with reference to Punjab, the largest rice surplus state and Kerala, one of the chronically rice-deficit states. And, finally Section VI draws the conclusion. REGIONAL PROFILE OF GROWTH Though rice is a tropical crop, requiring high temperature and humidity for growth, it is cultivated in both tropical and sub-tropical areas due to its high degree of adaptability. It grows in extreme soil conditions like the peaty soils of Kerala and alkaline soils of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh; in the high altitudes of the Himalayan foot-hills and Jammu and Kashmir; and in areas below sea level, like Kuttanad in Kerala1. Historically however the cultivation of this crop has been concentrated in the river valleys, deltas and low-lying areas of eastern, north-eastern and southern regions. The compilation of agricultural trends in British India by George Blyn (1966) shows that, between 1891-92 and 1946-47, more than 75 per cent of the area and over 80 per cent of the production of rice were accounted by Greater Bengal (comprising the present day Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Bangladesh), Madras (covering Tamil Nadu and the Malabar portion of Kerala ) and Assam. These proportions had remained almost stable throughout the fifty-five year period of the pre-independence era for which the data are available (Table 1). Blyn does not give information on rice cultivation in the then princely states of Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), Mysore (Karnataka) and Travencore-Cochin (Kerala), which are predominant rice growing areas in the southern region. In terms of area, rice is even now the most significant crop in these regions. During the last 50 years of the post-independence era, the southern, eastern and north-eastern states have devoted, on average, more than 40 per cent of their gross cropped area for the cultivation of rice (Table 2). The proportion varied from about 22 per cent in the southern region (Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka) to more than 60 per cent in the eastern region (Bihar,