After Twenty‐Five Years of Institution Building, The State Agricultural Universities in India Face New Challenges

Abstract

One of India's important efforts in institutional and organizational development was the establishment of a system of twenty-seven state agricultural universities (SAUs), modeled after the U.S. land grant universities. These SAUs currently train thousands of students and, together with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), they are one of the largest agicultural research establishments in the world. These SAUs have made substantial contributions to the development of agriculture and the improvement of India's rural life, even though the first SAU was not founded until 1960 and the last one in 1986 (Raman, Balaguru, and Manikandan). Yet, there are growing concerns whether or not the SAUs have the resources (both physical and human capital) to meet the new challenges in rural areas. Thus, it is time to review their twenty-five-year experience. This article has five objectives: (a) provide a review of how the SAUs were created, (b) examine the forces that made the institutional and organizational changes possible with particular reference to the transactions costs, (c) briefly review the performance of the SAUs, (d) discuss the problems and challenges that face the SAUs, and (e) suggest means for reducing the transactions costs that will limit future institutional and organizational changes.