In 2007, in the Tripura Human Development Report (of which I was the Editor), we wrote of the commendable progress of the State in respect of human development between 1991 and 2001, and noted that “the people of the State have experienced significant progress in the social, economic and political indicators of human development.” We also listed the constraints on further growth, including the effects of insurgency and associated violence. There can be no development when the means to lead a life of personal safety are absent.

Last week, I was in Manu in Dhalai district, the district in Tripura that was worst off in respect of all indicators of human development a decade ago. This is a district whose population is largely rural and tribal.

The most striking change in Dhalai (as in the rest of Tripura) is the return of peace and security.

My impression from a week in the field, participating in a survey of households in Mainama village, is of a society that has taken impressive steps on a public-support-led path of human development. Attendance in schools appears near-universal. Children from all parts of the village can be seen going to school in neat school uniforms. The survey did not cover health issues, but the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) reports that the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in rural Tripura in 2015-16 was 31 (as compared, for instance, to 50 in neighbouring Assam).

The village economy is an interesting combination of subsistence production and cash injection (the results of the survey will tell us the actual levels of income and employment). A large number of households cultivate rice (with very few modern inputs) on rainfed land on which the yields are low to medium, of the order of 1.5 to 23.5 tonnes per hectare. There have been important new interventions by the Agriculture Department through demonstration plots for hybrid and high-yielding paddy varieties (all inputs costs on these plots in farmers’ fields are met by the government). Almost all households have homestead land, on which a variety of vegetables and fruit are grown. The production of vegetables and fruit on homesteads is mainly, though not entirely, for home consumption, although a new sector of commercial vegetable farming is emerging. Internal fisheries, cultivated in ponds (many of which were created through work under the employment guarantee scheme) is another important emerging sector of rural production. The well-functioning public distribution system ensures a minimum quantity of rice, salt, sugar, and kerosene to each household.

There are three main sources of cash incomes (again, we have to await the survey results to quantify and assess the relative importance of the three sources). For households that have received rights to land in forest land, the sale of latex from rubber plantations, after a gestation period of about eight years, provides a regular source of cash income. Wage employment of 100 days a year, with a wage around Rs 150 a day, is available to all households that require it through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. It is a guaranteed minimum income. The third source of regular cash incomes is from employment in the public sector.

The challenge for the future is two-fold: enhancing productivity and incomes from agriculture and allied activities; and generating skilled employment for the younger educated generation. The latter will have to be integrated with the former to retain youth in agriculture.