Rural non-farm economy in India: A study of Uttar Pradesh

Leap frog strategy adopted by India has not relieved the burden of agriculture in absorbing the labor force in state like Uttar Pradesh (highest populated state of India) and residually a larger part of the workforce are still employed in agriculture sector and it is creating problems of over dependency of workforce on agriculture and unplanned migration to big cities in India. In search of solving the problem discussed above and generating employment opportunities for rural people in rural areas, rural Nonfarm sector is gaining serious policy discussions in India. The interesting fact is that the size of non- farm sector is not similar in different states of India or different district of Uttar Pradesh. To provide satisfactory insight to the problem the study has selected Uttar Pradesh for the deep study. To promote rural Nonfarm economy in a state like Uttar Pradesh the present work discusses the scenario of rural non-farm economy in Uttar Pradesh. The study finds that the extent of rural non farm employment is not similar in different districts of the state. To identify the determinants of rural non-farm employment in districts of Uttar Pradesh a multiple regression analysis has been done. The study concludes that infrastructure facility, agriculture productivity and agriculture commercialization significantly explain the variation in rural non-farm employment across the district of Uttar Pradesh. Finally, present study also concludes significant role of rural non-farm employment in reducing rural poverty in Uttar Pradesh.