A road trip to Western UP and Uttaranchal
Last week I travelled through three divisions of Western Uttar Pradesh and Garhwal division of Uttaranchal. The idea was to assess the current socio-economic conditions, especially in light of a deficient monsoon, inflation and accelerated public investment in infrastructure building. I may share some of the key take away as follows: Crop plentiful The crop, mainly sugarcane, appeared plentiful. The landscape was mostly lush green. However, many farmers suggested that they lost the investment in early sowing; and have again sown cash crops (vegetable etc.) after the late rains. These crops are also yielding much less as excess late rains have flooded the fields, particularly the smaller fields. Most of them are cautious about the rabi crop as the sowing for advance crop of potato is already delayed by 2-3weeks. However, if the current spell of rains ends in another week as forecasted, the rabi crop could be plentiful. Winter setting in early would also help rabi crops. Vehicle an...