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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Misplaced Priorities

On May 1, Maharashtra’s taxi drivers will confront a new occupational hazard in form of a Marathi language test. Under a state-wide inspection drive led by State Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik, the ability to read a signboard, write a sentence and exchange pleasantries in Marathi may determine whether or not a driver can keep a licence. In a transport system better known for its crumbling road infrastructure and eternally congested roads, this choice of priority is revealing. In principle,...

Misplaced Priorities

On May 1, Maharashtra’s taxi drivers will confront a new occupational hazard in form of a Marathi language test. Under a state-wide inspection drive led by State Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik, the ability to read a signboard, write a sentence and exchange pleasantries in Marathi may determine whether or not a driver can keep a licence. In a transport system better known for its crumbling road infrastructure and eternally congested roads, this choice of priority is revealing. In principle, the case for learning the local language is unimpeachable. Marathi is the cultural and administrative spine of the state and its use in public life ought to be encouraged, even expected. But principles, like policies, are best applied with a sense of proportion. A taxi driver’s primary duty is not linguistic elegance but safe conveyance which is to pick up a passenger, navigate chaotic roads and deliver them, intact, to their destination. That contract has endured for decades in Mumbai, Pune and beyond and often in a polyglot mix of Marathi, Hindi, English and improvised gestures. Indeed, the very success of Maharashtra’s urban transport ecosystem rests on its informality and inclusiveness. Thousands of drivers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states alongside local Maharashtrians keep its cities moving. Many speak limited Marathi. Few passengers, in practice, have treated this as a deal-breaker. The government’s rationale rests on complaints that some drivers are “unable or unwilling” to converse in Marathi. Perhaps so. But inconvenience is a curious hill on which to plant the flag of enforcement, especially when more substantive failures stare commuters in the face. Maharashtra’s roads remain a patchwork of craters and repairs and traffic discipline is sporadic. Yet it is the driver’s vocabulary that is to be inspected with bureaucratic zeal. The imbalance borders on the absurd. One imagines an inspector, clipboard in hand, quizzing a driver on basic sentence construction while the vehicle idles beside a waterlogged pothole large enough to swallow a suspension system. If governance is about prioritisation, this is an object lesson in getting it wrong. There is also an element of selective rigidity. It is entirely reasonable for the state to mandate Marathi in its own offices. Requiring officials in Mantralaya to conduct business in the language reinforces administrative coherence and public accessibility. But extending that logic to taxi drivers, many of whom operate on thin margins and are often migrants navigating a new city, conflates governance with compulsion. Encouraging the use of Marathi is a worthy goal. Compelling it in contexts where it is tangential to the task at hand is not. A taxi ride is not a language examination; it is a service. In the end, commuters are unlikely to care whether their driver can compose a sentence in Marathi. They will care whether the route is efficient and their journey is safe. The state government would do well to focus its attention on those counts.

Back to the Soil

India is rethinking the foundations of its farm economy, and few states are better placed than Maharashtra to lead the shift. After decades of chemical-intensive cultivation that lifted output but hollowed out soils, strained water supplies and inflated costs, the old growth model is running out of road. Climate volatility, stagnant farm incomes and chronic indebtedness have made incremental fixes inadequate. What is required is a structural reset and natural farming offers Maharashtra a plausible route to reconcile profitability with ecological repair.


India’s post-Green Revolution farm strategy, heavily reliant on subsidised fertilisers, pesticides and assured procurement, delivered food security but at a mounting ecological cost which was nowhere more visible than in Maharashtra’s declining soil carbon levels, groundwater stress and rising input dependence.


The state’s physical geography makes the case stark. Maharashtra spans roughly 307 lakh hectares, with a gross cropped area of about 241 lakh hectares and a net sown area of around 166 lakh hectares, implying a relatively high cropping intensity of 145 percent. Yet this apparent intensity masks a vulnerability: barely 18 percent of the cropped area is irrigated. Agriculture here remains overwhelmingly hostage to the monsoon. In such conditions, a system that reduces water dependence, conserves soil moisture and cuts input costs is less a lifestyle choice than an economic necessity.


Natural farming promises precisely that. By minimising external chemical inputs and relying on biological processes to regenerate soil fertility, it lowers cultivation costs and improves resilience during drought years. Its appeal in Maharashtra lies not only in theory but in precedent. Long before ‘regenerative agriculture’ became policy jargon, the state produced a lineage of agro-ecological experimentation - chemical-free cotton, organic horticulture belts and community-led soil restoration. What these efforts lacked was scale, consistency and assured market access.


That gap is now being addressed. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced a Natural Farming State Mission, while a dedicated Natural Farming Policy for 2025–2030 is being finalised. Unlike earlier subsidy-heavy approaches, the new framework places value chains at its centre. Gram-panchayat-level clusters are to be linked with bio-input resource centres, farmer-producer organisations (FPOs), digital traceability systems and credible certification. The idea is to move beyond farm-gate savings and allow cultivators to capture price premiums through branding, processing and export-oriented marketing.


Maharashtra’s crop portfolio gives it a natural advantage. Grapes, pomegranate, mango, cashew and turmeric already enjoy market recognition; cotton, soyabean, millets and vegetables provide scale. Certified natural produce from such crops is well suited to urban domestic markets and increasingly discerning global consumers. If the logistics work, farmers stand to gain twice - by saving on fertilisers and pesticides and by earning more per unit of output.


The numbers projected by policymakers are ambitious but not implausible. Large-scale adoption could cut cultivation costs by 40–50 percent and lift farm incomes by up to 35 percent, yielding a benefit–cost ratio of around 3.5. Environmental dividends would follow: annual reductions of 6–12 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions, 15–20 percent savings in irrigation water and measurable gains in soil organic carbon. Less quantifiable, but equally significant, are improvements in farmer health, food safety for consumers and greater participation of women in decentralised value chains such as bio-input preparation and processing.


Innovation at the farm level will matter as much as policy design. One promising approach is an agroforestry-based food systems for smallholders, which integrate trees with food crops, pulses, oilseeds and livestock in multi-layered arrangements. Such systems smooth incomes across seasons, restore soil fertility and further reduce reliance on purchased inputs. With the governor publicly championing natural farming and the chief minister pushing it in mission mode, the political conditions exist to scale these models across Maharashtra’s diverse agro-climatic zones.


Execution, however, will be decisive. Natural farming collapses quickly without reliable bio-input supply, credible certification and strict monitoring. ‘Natural’ labels that cannot be trusted would destroy price premiums and farmer confidence alike. Market linkages must be built before acreage expands, not after. These risks are acknowledged in the draft policy, but acknowledgement is easier than delivery.


If Maharashtra manages the transition with discipline, it could do more than green its own fields. It could offer India a template for an agriculture that regenerates ecosystems while rewarding those who work them. In a country where farm reform is politically fraught and ecologically overdue, that would be a benchmark worth setting.


(The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.)

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