India is the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables accounting for around 10% of global production. However, 35% of this is wasted due to post-harvest spoilage. Only 2% of the fruits and vegetables are processed in India, while this figure is in excess of 50% in many countries. An integrated cold storage system backed by unconventional sources of electricity, good rural roads, as well as better and faster processing facilities, would go a long way in reducing the wastage and also in adding further value to the produce that is otherwise getting wasted. This would also mitigate rural poverty to a significant extent.

One of the enduring problems with the Indian economy, in- spite of all its development and rapidly growing emerging economy status, is the fact that the Indian population is heavily dependent on agriculture. This is despite the fact that the share of agriculture as a percentage of overall GDP has declined dramatically over the years. Over half of India's GDP was attributable to agricultural activities at the time of independence; and today, the contribution of agriculture to GDP has reduced to less than one-fifth. Therefore, there has been enormous progress in weaning the economy away from an overdependence on agriculture. This is obviously a good thing, as much of Indian agriculture is still dependent on rainfall due to inadequate infrastructure by way of water storage facilities and other irrigation systems. Given the fickle nature of the monsoon, which is the principal source of water for agriculture in the country, the reduction of agricultural share in total GDP provides an increasing degree of stability to India's economic growth.

This by itself looks very encouraging, until one digs deeper and discovers that over half of the Indian population still depends on agriculture for its basic livelihood. Agriculture, is therefore, the most important sector from the point of view of employment for majority of the people of this country. Although the share of agriculture as a percentage of GDP has reduced over the years, a similar change in agricultural employment as a percentage of overall employment has not occurred. As a result, the per capita GDP of agricultural workers is very low when compared to overall per capita GDP. This is simply because per capita agricultural GDP is the result of less than a fifth of total GDP being divided by more than half of total population. This sorry state of affairs has ensured that grinding poverty has continued to be the norm in rural areas, where agriculture is the predominant occupation. When compared to the success that the Indian economy is enjoying in other sectors such as manufacturing and services, this disparity is leading to increasing inequality in income between those who are occupied in agriculture and those who are occupied in manufacturing and services.

Extreme poverty and income inequality is increasingly leading to social unrest and in the clairvoyant words of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh - Maoism is increasingly turning out to be the gravest internal security threat that the Indian State has ever faced. This Maoist cancer has the potential to nip the Indian success story in the bud, and reverse any gains that we might make as a result of economic success in other areas. The relative poverty of the agricultural population is the fuel that feeds the fire of resentment among the rural populace. This resentment provides the Maoists with easy recruitment opportunities to swell their ranks. This added dimension therefore makes it all the more imperative to take urgent and concerted steps that would mitigate poverty in the rural areas and provide the people with a better standard of living.

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