Boosting rural employment in a globalised regime

The paper seeks to highlight the declining trends of rural employment in the Indian economy during the globalisation era of the 1990s. It identifies problematic areas like the farm and non-farm sectors, rural infrastructure, sectoral and direct employment programmes, decentralisation of government, shrinking opportunities for rural women and trade openness in the agriculture sector. The paper suggests vigorous policy decisions to modernise the rural economy and boost rural employment. This will entail substantial investment in both the farm and non-farm sectors and their integration with infrastructure development and genuine decentralisation.