Jute- End of the Bonanza

The Economy In the Magnetic Zone IN official quarters there is complete silence on the subject, but per capita national income could not but have stagnated in 1971-72. Overall agri- cultural output, it anything, declined marginally during the year. The pro- duction of foodgrains, it is now plain, was down by close to two per cent; in the case of commercial crops, too, the advance in cotton and jute would have been more than counter-balanced by the fall in the output of oilseeds and sugar- cane. In the organised industrial sector, following the stretch of dreary months, a marked improvement in performance occurred in the last quarter of the fiscal year; as a consequence, perhaps the annual rate of growth was able to creep up to somewhere near three per cent. Even so, aggregate national output could hardly have grown at beyond two per cent. In other words, per capita income during the year has remained still or. for all one knows, dipped a little. Since this has not inhibited the forces that are at work aggravating income inequalities, the poorer sections of the community must have experienced a steeper order of decline in real incomes. The rampant inflation by itself should have further accelerated the pro- cess of a shift of income distribution away from the weaker elements in society.