The Case oj India 103 



The estimates derived for India compare favorably with other 

 estimates reported for developed countries. And what they show 

 is that a country which is in many ways ''underdeveloped" can 

 build technological discovery institutions capable of producing 

 substantial income streams. 



An Evaluation of the 

 Intensive Agricultural Districts Program (IADP) 



This section offers an evaluation of an important program that 

 was designed to produce rapid productivity growth in India. The 

 Intensive Agricultural Districts Program (IADP) was based on two 

 main premises. First, it supposed that significant ''economic 

 slack'' existed. That is, it supposed that economically relevant 

 technology was available, but that farmers had not adopted it for 

 reasons of ignorance or for lack of complementary inputs. Second, 

 it was supposed that an intensive effort which "packaged" several 

 programs would have a higher payoff than more diffused program 

 activities. That is, scale economies to the program effort were 

 presumed. 



Prior evaluations by D. Brown (1972) and by the Government 

 of India (G.O.I., 1963, 1966, 1967), while favorably disposed 

 toward the program, nonetheless provided evidence which indi- 

 cated that the program actually produced little or no increased ag- 

 ricultural output. These evaluations unfortunately were flawed, 

 not only by a lack of objectivity, but by an inappropriate in- 

 terpretation of the evidence. The present analysis is based on 

 more recent data, and is also based on a more appropriate 

 methodology. In contrast to the previous evaluations, we con- 

 clude that the program induced a very significant increase in the 

 use of "modern" factors of production and hence of agricultural 

 production. It did not, however, result in a major gain in "real" 

 total factor productivity. The real economic growth produced was 

 quite modest. However, the social returns to investment in the 

 program were probably similar to those realized in other develop- 

 ment projects. 



The IADP program grew out of the Indian government's con- 

 cern for stagnating food production in the late 1950s and its desire 



