PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Planning & Economic Development

What do you understand by Green Revolution? Do you think that a Second Green Revolution is needed to adequately address the agrarian challenges in contemporary India? Examine.

How the answer moves

The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.

Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes

Route 1 GR = HYV-seed + input + assured-price package (mid-1960s), Swaminathan/Borlaug → ‘begging bowl’ to ‘grain bowl’, self-sufficiency → but gains narrow, model now exhausted

Route 2 GR ended food scarcity and famine fear → yet its costs bred today’s distress → so the question is what kind of second revolution, not whether to repeat

Body flow

gains carried costs → Frankel: economic gains + political costs → regional imbalance (Punjab/Haryana/W-UP vs eastern + rainfed) → Shiva: ecological price (groundwater / soil / monoculture) → chemical-heavy path → today’s crisis (suicides, debt, low profitability) → SGR needed, not a repeat → Swaminathan’s “Evergreen Revolution”: productivity without ecological harm → eastern + dryland focus, watershed, micro-irrigation, diversification, climate-resilient / organic

Counter-view

technology alone cannot settle a political-economic crisis → Dreze & Sen: rising availability ≠ fair distribution

Conclusion routes

Route 1 yes, needed — but only as an Evergreen Revolution tied to procurement/MSP reform, public investment and secure land tenure → seeds alone insufficient

Route 2 a second revolution for eastern/rainfed India and sustainability, yet the crisis is political-economic → success rests on institutional reform, not technology alone

Model answer

Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.

Handwritten model answer — UPSC PSIR 2017, Planning & Economic Development