RURAL SECTOR DIVERSIFICATION AS AN INSTRUMENT OF MITIGATING RURAL CRISES: A CASE STUDY OF ASSAM

Assam, the gateway to India's northeast, is the sixteenth largest and fifteenth-mostpopulous state of India. In Assam, about 86 percent of the population lives in rural areas, compared to 68.86 percent in India. The rural agrarian economy of Assam is characterized by the existence of agrarian constraints and crises due to the different physiographic characteristics. The economy of Assam is mostly agriculture-based, in which 69 percent of the population is engaged in it. Directly or indirectly, most rural people have to depend on agriculture and allied activities. But in practicing these activities, they have to face some constraints and crises which compel them to shift their activities from traditional crop farming to allied activities and some of them are shifting to non-farming activities. Whether the constraints and crises faced by the farmers are responsible factors or not for such transformation in the rural economy, it is necessary to explore the constraints and crises of the rural economy along with its existing potentiality in the state of Assam. In this study, the researcher tries to explore the effects of agricultural or rural crises and constraints on the annual per capita consumption, education, health, the social and religious expenditure of the farmers' household during the crisis period with the help of paired t-test. Besides, An analysis of multiple regressions has been conducted to identify how crises and constraints affect diversified and non-diversified households. A rural household with multiple income sources will experience less variability in total income than households with a single source of income. Hence, households that have a greater diversity of income sources have a comparative advantage over those with lower diversity, as income diversification constitutes insurance against the uncertainties of the agricultural crisis.