Abstract for: Assessment of Technical Manpower Requirements in Agriculture Sector in India

The aim of this paper is to develop an integrated demand-supply model to forecast the requirements of technical manpower in the Indian agriculture sector. Technical manpower has played an important role in achieving self sufficiency in food grain production in India. At the current levels of operations itself, there is shortage of technical manpower at various levels of the agriculture sector. Drawing on system dynamics methodology, a causal model is initially developed which is subsequently transformed to a dynamic simulation model that captures the dynamics of manpower demand-supply interactions. The simulation results show technical manpower shortages in agriculture sector in India. A policy of 50 percent increase in the intake capacity of the technical institutions is proposed which is thereafter evaluated with anticipated sectoral growth rates of 3 per cent and 4 per cent respectively. The policy was found to alleviate the shortage of technical manpower substantially for both the scenarios. However, the policy makers need to make further interventions in balancing the technical manpower supply and demand in the long run.