NCERT Book Class 9 Social Science (Economics) Chapter 2 People as Resource

2
Chapter People as Resource

Overview India’s Green Revolution is a
The chapter 'People as Resource' is an dramatic example of how the input
effort to explain population as an asset of greater knowledge in the form of
for the economy rather than a liability. improved production technologies can
Population becomes human capital when rapidly increase the productivity of
there is investment made in the form of scarce land resources. India’s IT
education, training and medical care. revolution is a striking instance of
In fact, human capital is the stock of how the importance of human capital
skill and productive knowledge embodied has come to acquire a higher position
in them. than that of material, plant and
'People as Resource' is a way of machinery.
referring to a country’s working people
Source: Planning Commission, Govt. of India.
in terms of their existing productive
skills and abilities. Looking at the
population from this productive aspect
emphasises its ability to contribute to
the creation of the Gross National
Product. Like other resources population
also is a resource — a 'human resource'.
This is the positive side of a large
population that is often overlooked when
we look only at the negative side,
considering only the problems of
providing the population with food,
education and access to health facilities.
When the existing 'human resource' is
further developed by becoming more
educated and healthy, we call it 'human
capital formation' that adds to the
productive power of the country just like
'physical capital formation'.
Investment in human capital
(through education, training, medical
care) yields a return just like investment
in physical capital. This can be seen
directly in the form of higher incomes
earned because of higher productivity
of the more educated or the better trained
persons, as well as the higher
productivity of healthier people.

16 Economics