The agriculture sector known for its resilience and posting high growth rates in spite of adversities in the recent past has registered a negative growth (-1.54) as per the Advances Estimates presented in the Assembly on Friday.
According to the Socio Economic Survey for 2012-13, the sectoral composition of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) has witnessed a considerable change in the past few years with marked shift from agriculture to services.
The share of agriculture declined from 25.1 per cent in 2004 to 19.2 per cent in 2011. The contribution of industry, however, improved marginally from 24.3 per to 25.7 per cent during the period. Interestingly, the share of services increased significantly from 50.6 to 55.1 per cent.
Services sector comprising trade and hotels, transport by other means, communications, banking insurance, real estate and business, community, social and personal services continued to be the growth engine for pushing up the overall growth. It registered a healthy 9.8 per cent growth with communication, banking and insurance taking the major share.
With faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth being the theme of the XII Plan, the State is targeting double digit growth during the period setting ambitious targets of 6 per cent for agriculture, industry (10.5) and services (11.5).
Notwithstanding these adversities, the Provisional Census 2011 revealed certain favourable trends. A significant decline is observed in the rate of growth of population during 2001-11 from 14.6 per cent in 1991-2000 to 11.1 per cent 2001-10. With a population of 8.47 crore, the State accounts for seven per cent of country's population making it the fifth most populous State.
