Direct Estimation of Surplus Labour in Agriculture

Agriculture Ashok Rudra (in collaboration with Ramdev Biswas) It was once a very widely held idea that one of the characteristic symptoms of underdevelopment was the existence of surplus labour in agriculture. While it was recognised that there were backward economies that were not labour surplus, there never was any supposition that the Indian economy was one of them. However, this universally held idea has been under attack during the last several years. The challenging view would have it that the labour surplus is illusory; that traditional agriculture is efficient enough to make full use of the total supply of labour in agriculture.