The conventional image of Punjab, with its rivers of milk and mountains of golden grain, is in stark contrast to the picture painted by the state's first Human Development Report (HRD): a declining economy with growth rates lagging far behind national levels; marginal farmers driven to suicide by crushing burdens of debt; imminent ecological disaster with water tables plummeting and land rendered infertile; educated but unemployed youth hooked on drugs; a large number of nutritionally deprived children and rampant female foeticide.

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GOLDEN HARVEST: But at what cost? FADING FIELDS Overexploitation of land has lowered its fertility, resulting in stagnating yields, while the cost of inputs spirals. Reduced farm incomes are pushing farmers into debt and sometimes suicide.

"There are signs of an emerging crisis" in Punjab, says the Planning Commission- and UNDP-sponsored report. It is a shocker precisely because of the state's apparent prosperity. There are pockets of intense deprivation. In Mansa district in south Punjab, for example, the literacy level is only slightly higher than that of Bihar. Infant mortality in these areas is comparable to that in Rajasthan. The Scheduled Castes, who form 28 per cent of Punjab's population, are worse off than the rest of the population, with female literacy among them at only 31 per cent and land ownership one-tenth of their total share of population. Punjab Finance Minister Surender Singla agrees, "There are massive inequities, especially in terms of access to health and education."

Lagging way behind states like Maharashtra, Gujarat and even Rajasthan in terms of growth rate, Punjab does not appear to have benefited from a decade of economic liberalisation. Contributing to the poor performance of the state's economy are low levels of investment, low credit-deposit ratio, an adverse advance deposit ratio and inadequate assistance by the Punjab State Financial Corporation and by national financial institutions.

The crisis is imminent in agriculture. With 84 per cent of its total land area under cultivation and an abnormally low forest cover of 5.5 per cent, there is little scope for bringing more land under farming. The cropping pattern is water intensive, with the result that the water table is depleting at an alarming rate. Intensive use of chemical fertilisers has degraded the quality of land, so crop yield has stabilised but the cost of cultivation is rising. Farm incomes have dropped and small farms are unviable because farming is capital intensive. The result is a third of the farmers in the state are "facing ruin and a crisis of existence". Suicides by debt-ridden farmers have increased steadily through the 1990s.

STATE OF SHOCK    Growth rate declines from 6.9 per cent in    1974-78 to 4.1 per cent in 1997-2001

GENDER RATIO (0-6 age group) India: 933; Punjab: 793 Female death rate (0-4 years) is 275 per cent of the male death rate INFANT MORTALITY RATE Kerala: 16 per cent Punjab: 54 per cent India: 71 per cent ANAEMIA INCIDENCE AMONG CHILDREN Punjab: 80 per cent India: 74 per cent LITERACY RATE India: 65%; Punjab: 69% (Mansa district: 52%) Tamil Nadu: 73% RURAL DEBT Rs 5,700 crore. Per acre debt for marginal farmers: Rs 34,297 -Rs 40,995

The Green Revolution blues became apparent in the early '90s. "For 20 years, successive state governments shut their eyes to the emerging problems. There should have been a course correction long ago," says Pranab Sen, principal adviser to the Planning Commission. The problem is that the state Government has a stake in maintaining the wheat-paddy cropping pattern as the Food Corporation of India pays it a massive cess in exchange for acquiring 85 per cent of the state's foodgrain output.

So half-hearted were the state government's efforts to liberate farmers from the wheat-paddy trap that even those who moved to alternative crops found them unviable and went back to producing cereals. Pramod Kumar, who heads the Centre for Development Studies in Chandigarh, asks, "Without markets and market intelligence and infrastructure, how do you expect farmers to risk a shift to other crops?"

"Punjab needs a paradigm shift. It needs to transform agriculture, not just tinker with it. But look at the attitude: in 2001, the Punjab government decided to compensate families of debt-driven suicide victims with Rs 2.5 lakh each. Are you trying to incentivise suicides?" asks Kumar. Sen believes that the state Government should take non-resource intensive steps, like creating an investor-friendly climate through administrative reforms.

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THIRSTY CROPS: Water demand exceeds supply HAPLESS PREY: Drug abuse is common in Amritsar's Maqboolpura VANISHING WATER Water-intensive farming has led to the depletion of the water table, in some districts by 5 m in a decade. DRUG ABUSE Drug addiction is rising, especially near the border. NGOs link it to the high rate of unemployment among educated youth.

Punjab's "poverty of prosperity" among marginal farmers, SCs and women and children has spawned paradoxes. Punjab boasts a food surplus, but it also has a high incidence of anaemia among children. It is a state with high literacy, but an even higher incidence of female foeticide. It is sixth in terms of national human development index, but in terms of gender equality, it is 16th, with an abysmal gender ratio of 793 females to every 1,000 males. There is also growing drug abuse, especially among educated but unemployed youth. The unemployment rate among this section is higher than the all-India level.

Says development expert Rachpal Malhotra: "Punjab has three kinds of constraints: financial, infrastructural and human resources." It is choking on its own prosperity: an ecological crisis engendered by the pressure to maintain production and consumerism ushered in by high incomes leading to debt, create a vicious cycle from which the state must somehow emerge.

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