Role of Technology on the Development of Agriculture in Malda District of West Bengal (India): A Geographical Analysis

Agriculture is a prime source of food and also the sources of raw materials for various agro-based industries. Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy and main source of livelihood in rural people of West Bengal. In the process of Agriculture development, Technology (modern inputs) played major role. The main objective of this paper is to assess the impact of technology on the development of agriculture with the help of computing composite index in the blocks of Malda district. The block has been taken as a unit of the study. In order to examine the impact of technology on the development of agriculture in Malda district a set of 13 indicators have been selected. The study is based on secondary sources of data obtained from Bureau of Applied Economics and Statistics, government of West Bengal. The inter-blocks variation may conveniently be grouped into three grades high, medium and low development. There are 5 blocks that fall under high level of agricultural development, 6 blocks under medium and remaining 4 under low level of agricultural development. It is evident from the study that blocks that show high levels of agricultural development have good infrastructure and modern technological facilities than those having medium and low agricultural development.