THE MAIN REPORT.

XVI. STATISTICS

The compilation of agricultural statistics of a uniform type for CHAPTER XVIII OF all India began in 1884. The Famine Commission of 1880 drew attention to the importance of improving statistics and the early efforts of the agricultural departments were largely concentrated on this work.

The statistics published by the Government of India which have an agricultural bearing deal with (a) cultivation and crops; (b) livestock and implements; (c) vital statistics; and (d) economic data.

The Agricultural Statistics of India are published annually in two volumes, the first of which relates to British India and the second to certain Indian States. For each province or State figures are given of the total area, classified as cultivated, uncultivated and forests; the area and crops irrigated; the total area under crops and under each important crop; livestock, ploughs and carts; the incidence of the land revenue assessment; the harvest prices of certain important crops; and the average yield of the principal crops in each province. We have two recommendations to make regarding this publication. The date of issue might be expedited with advantage, and the figures might be given by districts as was formerly done.

A report is published quinquennially on the average yield per acre in each province of the principal crops in India, seventeen in number. There is also published in the Indian Trade Journal, a weekly publication, about one year after the year to which it relates, a provisional issue of Volume I of the Agricultural Statistics of India and full particulars relating to tea, coffee and rubber. A crop atlas has also been published.

Crop forecasts for all-India are issued each season for eleven of the principal crops and the Estimates of Area and Yield of the Principal Crops in India, including all crops for which forecasts are issued and also tea, coffee, rubber and certain other crops, are published annually. We suggest that, in this compilation, figures of areas and yield should be given separately for British India and the Indian States and that indigo should now be omitted.

Provincial forecasts, as well as those for the whole of India, are published in the Indian Trade, Journal. We consider that the custom of publishing them in leaflet form should be revived. Arrangements should also be made for the issue of forecasts in the vernacular and for their supply to cultivators.

Except in Burma and the Central Provinces, forecasts are prepared by the agricultural departments. If these departments receive the statistical assistance we recommend later, we think it would be advantageous if forecasts in these two provinces were to be prepared by the agricultural departments. In Burma, however, the rice forecast should continue to be prepared as at present by the Commissioner of Settlements and Land Records.

A quinquennial census of livestock, ploughs and carts is held.

Much statistical information of value is contained in the provincial Season and Crop Reports and in various departmental reports. We suggest that the statistics in the reports of the irrigation, education and forest departments should be modified in certain directions to give fuller information.

The Statistical Abstract for British India summarises most of the information given in the reports referred to above.

Care should be taken to reconcile discrepancies between the figures given in the various departmental returns and those given in the Agricultural Statistics of India.

The figures for land classified as "not available for cultivation" and "culturable waste" are apt to give rise to misconception. The Agricultural Statistics of India suggest that nearly one quarter of the total area of British India is culturable but not cultivated. We consider that the classification requires careful re-examination.

It is generally admitted that the annual figures of the areas sown with the various crops attain a high standard of accuracy. In most provinces, there is a satisfactory agency for collecting the figures. The exceptions are Bengal and Bihar and Orissa. A fairly efficient machinery to which we refer below has been evolved to collect the statistics of jute production and we would suggest for consideration the possibility of extending it to other crops in the permanently settled parts of those two provinces and of Assam.

The three factors necessary for estimating the yield of a crop are area, normal yield and estimate of condition. The estimate of normal yield is based on crop-cutting experiments made over a number of years. At present, these experiments are generally conducted by the revenue departments. This practice should continue till the statistical side of the work of the agricultural departments is expanded. Changes in the figures of standard yield of crops should only be made on data based on accurate crop cuttings. The condition estimate is the most difficult to arrive at satisfactorily. We agree with the view expressed by the Board of Agriculture in 1919 that all attempts to teach the primary reporting agency to form an exact mental picture of a normal crop should be abandoned and that it is for the district officers and the provincial authorities through whom the village accountant's estimate passes, to correct it.

Jute is the only crop for the publication of the estimate of yield of which the Department of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics is not responsible. The Director of Agriculture, Bengal, issues the estimates not only for Bengal, but also for Bihar and Orissa and Assam. He now relies for his figures on presidents of panchayats. The figures are checked by the subdivisional officers and the district officers and forwarded to the Director of Agriculture. Agricultural officers assist the district officers, wherever possible. There appears to be no good reason why the trade interests should not collaborate with the Government of Bengal in the same way as the rice trade does in Rangoon. The fact that the cultivator

has an interest as important as that of the jute trade in the accuracy of these estimates should always be kept in mind.

The improvement in the statistics of cotton recently effected by the Indian Central Cotton Committee furnishes an example of the statistical benefits to be obtained from the thorough organisation of all interests connected with a particular crop.

The annual returns of rail and river-borne trade have been discontinued. We regard this as unfortunate as information regarding the movements of agricultural produce within India is now altogether lacking. We consider that they should be revived and that statistics should be collected of the trade on the main roads crossing the frontiers of India.

With regard to livestock statistics, we would recommend that the quinquennial census should be taken simultaneously in all provinces and that an effort should be made to ensure uniformity of classification. A suitable classification might be laid down by the Cattle Conference.

In the case of vital statistics, we suggest that separate figures should be given for urban and rural districts. We think also that the number and distribution of institutions for the treatment of disease and the strength and distribution of medical and health services, including trained midwives, should be shown separately for urban and rural districts as we consider it very important that the position of rural areas in regard to these essential services should be clearly stated.

There is also much useful work for private individuals and associations to do in correlating vital statistics and health data with those relating to agricultural and irrigation conditions. Similarly there is wide scope for scientific research into such socio-economic problems as indebtedness, mortgage debt and fragmentation of holdings. Such work can be taken up by university organisations and semi-official bodies of the type of the Punjab Board of Economic Enquiry.

If statistics are to be adequately dealt with, we consider that there must be a strengthening of staff all along the line. No statistical organisation at present exists in any province. In the first place, we consider that every Director of Agriculture should, without delay, be given a capable statistical assistant. His main concern would be with the compilation of crop forecasts, with statistics of agricultural production, with the technique and supervision of crop-cutting experiments and with the collection of statistics regarding prices. Such officers might suitably be attached to the central statistical organisation. Further, as the application of mathematics to agriculture has introduced an entirely new factor into scientific agriculture, we consider that a specialist with the highest qualifications in this branch of agricultural science should be attached to the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute.

Apart from agricultural problems, we would draw attention to the increasing importance which is being attached all over the world to statistical research as an aid to the formulation of social policies. We consider that the efforts of Government to promote rural welfare would

be greatly assisted by the appointment of a well qualified statistical officer to provincial headquarters to whom would be entrusted the duty of studying all aspects of the economic and social progress of the province. Such an officer should be the centre round which voluntary workers in the field of economic and social statistics would gather rather than the head of a purely official organisation. In short, he should be the director of a bureau of statistical information.

With regard to the central organisation, we consider that the Department of Statistics should be reconstituted as a separate department. The Director should be a man of recognised competence and should be relieved, as far as possible, of all avoidable routine matters in connection with ordinary statistics. It would, in our view, be useless to engage any but a first class statistician for the duties we have in mind. The officer selected must be of sufficient standing to make his advice acceptable not only to the provincial statistical officers but also to the business world and the informed public. One of his most important duties would be to establish close touch with these very important non-official sections of the community and we trust that provision will be made in the central statistical organisation for boards which would advise on the publication of statistics and their periodical revision and that representative leading economists, scientists and business men will find a place on these boards as well as officials of the departments interested. In this way, we trust that a school of statistical interpretation may develop in this country which would have little or no formal connection with Government but would, nevertheless, have access to, and be thoroughly familiar with official statistical material of all kinds. In fact, there would, we trust, gather round the Central Bureau of Statistical Information the beginnings of a Royal Statistical Society for India.

The whole basis of statistics in India urgently requires broadening. It should rest not on the work of a few government officials however able, but on the support of the informed public and through them on the recognition by the legislatures and by the general public that modern statistical methods are in a position to make an indispensable contribution to the successful development alike of scientific agriculture and of social administration.

We consider that every opportunity should be taken to utilise the statistical experience of the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome.

As a primary agency for the collection of agricultural statistics in temporarily settled areas, we see no practicable alternative to the continued employment of subordinate revenue officials, but more use should be made of non-official agencies.

XVII. THE AGRICULTURAL SERVICES

CHAPTER XIX OF THE MAIN REPORT.

We consider here the recruitment, organisation, pay and conditions of service of the personnel of the agricultural departments with special reference to the increased responsibilities which will be imposed upon them if the recommendations made in the Report are accepted. Recruitment. for the Indian Agricultural Service ceased in 1924 in consequence of the general decision taken, on the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India, not to recruit further for such of the all-India services as were administering subjects, of which agriculture was one, which had been transferrred under the Constitutional Reforms of 1919, to the control of the Governors of provinces acting with their Ministers. When recruitment for the Service ceased in 1924, its sanctioned strength was 157; 19 posts under the Government of India and 138 under local governments. The Service was, however, considerably under strength and only 109 posts were filled. This has since fallen to 93; 12 officers serving under the Government of India and 81 under provincial governments. To these 81 officers there should be added 16 officers holding permanent appointments not included in the cadre of the Indian Agricultural Service. Thus the duties of the higher branches of the service in the provinces are now being performed by 97 officers and this may be regarded as the minimum strength required for the existing work.

Prior to 1920, Bombay and the Central Provinces were the only provinces which had a regular provincial service. As a result of the recommendations of the Public Services Commission, commonly known as the Islington Commission, such services were constituted in all provinces after 1920, partly by absorption of special posts, partly by the promotion of officers of the upper subordinate services and partly by direct recruitment. In the present depleted state of the Indian Agricultural Service some officers of the provincial services officiate more or less continuously in professorial or research appointments. In all provinces except Burma, the minimum pay of this service is Rs. 250 per mensem and the maximum Rs. 750 per mensem. In Burma, the minimum and maximum are Rs. 300 and Rs. 800 respectively. The present strength of the provincial services is 157.

Below the provincial services in all provinces come subordinate services, the designations of which are as various as their rates of pay. In most provinces, the qualification for the upper grade of the subordinate service is the possession of the degree or diploma of an agricultural college. Scales of pay differ greatly but, in no province, is the minimum starting pay of the upper grade less than Rs. 60 or the maximum more than Rs. 300 per mensem. The upper subordinate services provide managers and assistant managers of farms, demonstrators of agricultural improvements, and laboratory and teaching assistants at the colleges; it also renders general help in the work of the department under the orders of the deputy or assistant directors of agriculture. The lower grade of the subordinate services consists mainly of those who