Statistical evaluation of agricultural development in Raipur district based on agricultural indicators
Abstract
This study focuses on assessing the agricultural development of Raipur district in Chhattisgarh by constructing composite indices derived from a range of developmental indicators. The analysis was carried out for four blocks—Aarang, Abhanpur, Raipur, and Tilda covering the year 2024–25. To ensure a comprehensive evaluation, three different methods were applied: Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the Narain et al. (1991) [16] method, and the Michela method (2005) [17]. The findings of the study revealed notable disparities in the level of agricultural development across the blocks. Among them, Aarang emerged as the most advanced, reflecting higher performance across the selected indicators. In contrast, Raipur and Tilda were identified as significantly lagging behind, showing weaker agricultural development. Abhanpur, while not at the top, was positioned in an intermediate stage, indicating progress and potential for further development. These results highlight the uneven nature of agricultural growth within the district and underline the need for targeted interventions to reduce block-level disparities.
Full Text
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Introduction
Agriculture is one of the dominant sectors of developing countries in terms of food security, poverty reduction and employment generation (Barik, 2017) [14] . It has a crucial role to national development through the economic and social contribution. The term agricultural development refers to the growth and overall changes of agriculture resulting in vertical expansion. In present time, when the agriculture is one of the important sources of income, the commercialization of agriculture is an important element of agricultural development. The area under cash crop to the total cropped area may be used for the measure of commercialization of agriculture. The level of agricultural development considered the degree of agrarian structure gets strengthened leading thereby to increased production and reflects the income level of cultivators. The crop productivity is one of vital aspects of agricultural development (Jadhav, 1997) [15] . Block-level analysis provides actionable insights for identifying disparities and guiding targeted interventions. Since single indicators cannot capture the multidimensional nature of development, composite indices offer a more comprehensive assessment. Raipur district in Chhattisgarh presents significant variation in agricultural outcomes across blocks. Understanding these disparities is essential for designing localized strategies. This study aims to evaluate block-wise agricultural development.
Materials and Methods
Study Area
The present study pertains to four blocks in Raipur district of Chattisgarh state and four blocks of Raipur districts are Aarang, Abhanpur, Raipur and Tilda. The secondary data on block level agricultural indicators has been collected from various sources, including the Directorate of Economics & Statistics, the Census Report (2011), and the Government of Chhattisgarh, for the year 2024-25.
Indicators
Agricultural Indicators: cropping intensity, irrigation coverage, fertilizer consumption, proportion of agricultural workers, cropping patterns, etc.
Statistical tools and techniques
Result and Discussion
The study titled Statistical Evaluation of Agricultural Development in Raipur District Based on Developmental Indicators was undertaken to assess the level of agricultural progress across different blocks of the district. For this purpose, four blocks Aarang, Abhanpur, Raipur, and Tilda were selected and analyzed in detail for the agricultural sector during the year 2024-25. The evaluation focused on examining variations in development by using a set of carefully chosen indicators that reflect different dimensions of agriculture, such as land use, irrigation, cropping patterns, and resource utilization. By comparing these blocks, the study aimed to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses in their agricultural performance, thereby providing insights into the disparities that exist within the district and pointing towards areas where targeted interventions may be needed to ensure balanced development.
Develop adoption index for selected Agricultural technologies
The adoption indices for different blocks were computed using the agricultural and infrastructural indicators of Raipur district. For agricultural sector we had taken nine indicators viz., percentage area sown more than once, fertilizer consumption per hectare, percentage of net area irrigated, percentage of gross area irrigated, percentage of agricultural workers, percentage area under Kharif season crop, percentage area under Rabi season crop, Percentage area sown under food crops and Percentage of net sown area.
Composite Index of adoption for agricultural technologies
The Eigen value and proportion of adoption of recommended in agricultural technologies are worked out and presented in Table 1. The results of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) highlighted that out of the nine agricultural technologies considered in the study, only two indicators percentage area sown more than once and percentage of net area irrigated were found to be the most significant in explaining variation across the blocks. Together, these two factors accounted for 0.91 percent of the total variation, underscoring their strong role in influencing the adoption of agricultural technologies. This suggests that practices related to multiple cropping and irrigation availability are central to determining the pace of agricultural development in the region. Their prominence indicates that improvements in these areas could directly enhance technology adoption and contribute to narrowing developmental gaps among the blocks.
The level of Development for agricultural indicators
The composite indices of development have been worked out for different blocks of agricultural sector. The blocks have been ranked on the basis of developmental indices.
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